Grand Canyon: 2024-25 Western Athletic Men's Basketball Champions

 

PARADISE, Nev. (AP) — Ray Harrison scored 18 points to lead six Grand Canyon players in double figures and the Lopes beat top-seeded Utah Valley 89-82 on Saturday night in the championship game of the Western Athletic Conference Tournament.

No. 2 seed Grand Canyon (26-7) clinched its third consecutive NCAA Tournament berth and its fourth in program history, all since 2021.

Duke Brennan finished with 16 points and 10 rebounds and JaKobe Coles scored 13 for the Lopes. Makaih Wiilliams, Lok Wur and Tyon Grant-Foster added 12 points apiece.

Carter Welling made a jumper that trimmed Utah Valley’s deficit to three with nine minutes to play but got no closer. Harrison answered with two free throws and, after a steal by Collin Moore, Williams hit a step-back 3-pointer with 8:23 remaining and Coles hit two free throws to make it 74-62 about five minutes later.

Tanner Toolson hit 6 of 9 from 3-point range and led the Wolverines with 28 points. Welling scored 18 points and Trevan Leonhardt added 10 with six assists.

Utah Valley (25-8), which had won 10 in a row and 20 of its last 21 games, won the regular season conference title and made its first-ever appearance in championship game. The Wolverines were 0-6 in tournament’s semifinals before a 68-55 win over No. 5 seed Seattle on Friday.

Utah Valley used a 19-5 run to take 21-12 lead about nine minutes into the game but Grand Canyon scored the next nine points and then closed with 7-1 spurt to take a 40-33 lead into halftime.

The teams split the regular-season series with each home team winning.

Grand Canyon: 2023-24 Western Athletic Men's Basketball Champions

 

LAS VEGAS (AP) — Tyon Grant-Foster scored 22 points, Ray Harrison added 15 of his 19 in the second half and top-seeded Grand Canyon beat UT Arlington 89-74 Saturday night to win the Western Athletic Conference Tournament for the second consecutive season and clinch an automatic berth in the NCAA Tournament.

The Lopes have appeared five of the last six WAC Tournament title games, winning three of the last four.

Lok Wur scored 16 points and Jovan Blacksher Jr. 14 for Grand Canyon (29-4).

Phillip Russell led UT Arlington (20-14) with 22 points, including four 3-pointers. Shemar Wilson added 13 points and Akili Vining 10.

Harrison converted a three-point play and followed with two free throws to open the second half as Grand Canyon scored 14 of the first 21 points to open its biggest lead at 50-39 with 15 minutes to play. Brandyn Talbot answered with two free throws before Phillip Russell hit a 3 to trim the deficit to six points a minute later and made another from beyond the arc to make it 68-64 with 4 minutes remaining.

McGlothan answered with a monstrous two-hand dunk before Talbot hit another 3 to cut UTA's deficit to three points but Harrison hit two free throws and the Mavericks committed turnovers on their next two possessions and, each time, Grant-Foster hit two free throws before Harrison made a layup to cap an 8-0 run and make it 78-67 with 1:43 to go.

Moore threw down a fast-break dunk with 2.9 seconds left that stretched Grand Canyon's lead to 86-74 — the Lopes' biggest of the game. Russell, who apparently took umbrage with the play, seemed to intentionally bump Moore, who was then hit with the ball following a baseball pass by Vining. Moore was assessed a Flagrant-2 foul, Vining a technical foul and both players were ejected.

Derrick Michael Xzavierro, who didn't play for Grand Canyon, was also ejected for leaving the bench area.

UT Arlington shot 49% (25 of 51) from the field and limited the Lopes to just 40% (23 of 58) shooting but the Mavericks were outscored 37-14 from the free-throw line, where GCU attempted a Division-I program record 50 shots.

Grand Canyon scored 32 points off 26 Mavericks turnovers and committed 14, which UTA converted into just 11 points.

No. 3 seed UT Arlington made its only NCAA Tournament appearance when the Mavericks won the 2008 Southland Conference Tournament. UTA joined the WAC prior to the 2022-23 season.

Grand Canyon: 2022-23 Western Athletic Men's Basketball Champions

LAS VEGAS — With a chance to break a 20-plus year drought of NCAA Tournament bids, Southern Utah's magic ran out late Friday night in front of a packed house in the desert.

Less than 24 hours after Tevian Jones' miraculous 4-point play capped off a 23-comeback win over in-state rival Utah Valley, there was no such strike for the upstart Thunderbirds in their first season in the Western Athletic Conference, and their first conference tournament title game since winning the 2001 Mid-Continent championship.

SUU trailed by as much as 18 in the second half — a stone's throw behind the 23-point deficit the Thunderbirds overcame a night earlier — but barely got within single digits in the second half in front of a raucous Orleans Arena crowd filled roughly two-thirds by purple-clad Lopes fans.

Ray Harrison had 31 points, eight rebounds and eight assists, and Gabe McGlothan scored 21 as Grand Canyon overwhelmed the Thunderbirds 84-66 to claim their second NCAA Tournament berth in program history.

Noah Baumann had 16 points and seven rebounds for the Lopes (24-11).

Jones led Southern Utah (22-10) with 17 points and three rebounds, and Maizen Fusett added 12 points and seven boards. Harrison Butler added 11 points, eight rebounds and four assists for the Thunderbirds.

Grit. Heart. Intensity. The Thunderbirds had plenty of it on Saturday night but fell victim to their Achilles' heel once again: guarding the 3-point line.

Utah Tech's Cam Gooden had a career-high 35 points against SUU in the first round of the WAC Tournament. Then came UVU's Trey Woodbury and the 29 points he scored in that come-from-ahead loss. Harrison, who shot 4-of-6 from 3-point range in the first half, was just the latest in a succession of career shooters.

SUU led for less than six minutes of game time as Grand Canyon dropped in 13 3-pointers and outrebounded the Thunderbirds 41-30.

Grand Canyon: 2021 Western Athletic Men's Basketball Champions

LAS VEGAS -- — Jovan Blacksher Jr. had 19 points and seven rebounds, and Grand Canyon earned its first bid to the NCAA Tournament with a 74-56 win over New Mexico State in the Western Athletic Conference tournament championship on Saturday night.

The top-seeded Antelopes (17-6) took the lead for good during a 12-0 run that ended at 19-9 on Oscar Frayer's layup. Grand Canyon's 7-0 run late in the half pushed the lead into double digits for good.

The Antelopes entered the game ranked second in the nation in field goal percentage defense at 37.7% and held No. 3 seed New Mexico State to 36.4% on 20-of-55 shooting. The Aggies attempted 32 shots from 3-point range, making nine of them.

Asbjorn Midtgaard added 12 points and eight rebounds, and Mikey Dixon scored 10 points for the Lopes.

Evan Gilyard II had 18 points, Jabari Rice scored 12 and Donnie Tillman added 11 for the Aggies (12-8).

Grand Canyon coach Bryce Drew, in his first year with the Lopes, was in the NCAA Tournament exactly 23 years ago when he made a buzzer-beating 3-pointer for Valparaiso to beat 10th-ranked Mississippi.

The Antelopes lost to New Mexico State in the previous two WAC championship games in 2018 and 2019. The Aggies won the previous three championships and seven of the last eight.

But the disruptions of the 2020-21 season were especially acute for New Mexico State, which spent over two months at the Arizona Grand Resort and finished the season without a game on its home court.

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