Grand Canyon did not have its shooting touch Saturday night, but its defense and hustle into that final minute gave it enough shots to beat California Baptist 56-50 for its ninth consecutive home win at GCU Arena.
In two-thirds of their games this season, the Lopes (16-5, 7-3 WAC) have held opponents to 40% or worse shooting. Doing it Saturday pulled GCU even in the conference standings’ loss column with third-place Sam Houston (14-11, 9-3 WAC) and within a game of second-place Seattle U (17-6, 8-2 WAC), which it beat Thursday to earn the tiebreaker.
The Lopes trailed for one of the game’s final 27 minutes but never could put away the Lancers despite holding them to 34.7% shooting, third worst on their season, and 50 points, second worst of its season.
“It was a grinder game,” GCU head coach Bryce Drewsaid.
The Lopes lost this type of game two weeks earlier at Sam Houston but proved more resilient this time when the game was tied at 48-48 with two minutes remaining. It was sophomore power forward Yvan Ouedraogo’s offensive rebound that set up junior forward Taeshon Cherry’s go-ahead score on a driving floater with 1:33 to go.
“It was a dogfight,” Ouedraogo said. “I think we’ve got a lot of winners. We have a lot of guys who hate to lose. We’re just going to do everything we can to win at the end.”
That was evident from that second-chance basket and the remaining time. Miller-Moore defended California Baptist freshman point guard Taran Armstrong, who had six NBA scouts in attendance, as he missed a shot to tie on a 2-for-10 shooting night.
Given another chance to tie or take a lead, a missed CBU jumper came off toward the floor, where Lancers guard Ty Rowell attempted to grab the ball and last control with Blacksher and Woods going to the floor for the ball. Miller-Moore secured the airborne ball, one of his career-high 12 rebounds, and Lancers head coach Rick Croy drew a technical foul by rushing onto the floor toward an official at midcourt to protest a no-call with the Lancers trailing 50-48.
Woods’ free throws for Croy’s technical foul and Blacksher’s two free throws for a foul secured the win with a six-point lead and 15.8 seconds remaining.
“You love the toughness,” Drew said. “Gabe McGlothan summed up for the game for us. Four fouls, goes diving across, bloodies up his face. You like that toughness. It’s hard to turn it off and on. Our team was on it with it all night.”
The Lopes struggled from the field in what Croy called CBU’s “best 40-minute performance of the year” but gave themselves 11 more shots than the Lancers because of seven fewer turnovers and four more offensive rebounds.
After Blacksher and Woods combined for 48 points in Thursday night’s win but were the only Lopes in double figures, GCU struggled offensively Saturday night but had four scorers in double figures to make up for the star guards’ off-shooting nights.
Blacksher (13 points) and Woods (11 points) did make 12 of 14 free throws combined and McGlothan and Cherry each scored 10. Each power forward hit 2 of 3 shots from 3-point range.
“Having some toughness and being able to fight through those obstacles and droughts carried us through,” McGlothan said. “On the (0-3) trip, we lost our identity a little bit and we were trying to find ways to win that were not as successful. This time, we bonded together. Our defense and toughness were what carries us out and that’s our identity.”
The offenses stumbled from the tip with GCU not scoring for the first five minutes, missing its first 10 shots. But CBU only scored two points in the first six minutes in a slugfest that sat at 4-4 after nine minutes. A pair of McGlothan 3-pointers sparked a 13-0 run that put GCU ahead 21-11 and sent the Lopes to a 28-19 halftime lead.
“Sometimes, you get in the league and teams know each other,” Drew said. “This was our second game in three days. We both played really tough games less than 48 hours ago. Both teams played extremely hard and there was definitely some fatigue on the offensive end, but both teams really guarded for the duration of the game.”
The Lopes led by as much as 11 (32-21) early in the second half, when Blacksher played the entire half.
“Credit him with playing with a lot of heart,” Drew said of Blacksher, who scored in double figures for the 25th consecutive game.
GCU heads back out on the road for a Thursday game at Utah Valley, which won at Sam Houston on Saturday, and then Dixie State two nights later.
“We’ve got the best fans in the country so being at home is helping a lot,” Ouedraogo said. “It’s also teaching us how to close games. A game like Sam Houston, when we missed our crowd at the end, made us realize how to stay together at the end and we’re going to use it for the remaining games on the road.”
Press Release courtesy of Grand Canyon University Athletics – Paul Coro
