Antelopes lose to Seattle Pacific

Saturday, November 27

GCU

7:15 p.m.

Grand Canyon

Seattle Pacific

GCU junior Kyle Speed, a Seattle native, had 19 points and seven assists in Saturday's game against Seattle Pacific.

11/27/2010 10:09:35 PM | Men's Basketball

Speed has 19 points, seven assists

By: Steve Heath

Against one of the traditionally strong programs in the West Region, Grand Canyon lost 79-68 to Seattle Pacific in the GCU/Crowne Plaza Thanksgiving Classic at Antelope Gymnasium Saturday.

Seattle Pacific was ranked in the top 10 in the Division II Preseason National Association of Basketball Coaches poll and is the defending champion of the Great Northwest Athletic Conference.

“I hate that we lost the game, but I think it’s good for our program to bring teams in here (like Seattle Pacific and Friday’s opponent, Washburn) to see what the standard is,” said GCU coach Russ Pennell. “These are perennial powers that go to the national tournament and challenge year in and year out. We want to be one of those teams and we have to play those teams and find out how they’re doing it and duplicate it.

“If nothing else, that’s what we found out about ourselves this weekend.”

Similar to Friday night’s game with Washburn (Kan.), a top program in the Midwest, Grand Canyon battled from behind most of the way and fought hard for the entire 40 minutes. Against the Falcons on Saturday, GCU trailed by as much as 17, but got some hot-shooting late in the game from guards Kyle Speed and Steven Morin.

A Speed trey at the 3:41 mark cut it to 65-57. Grand Canyon worked the ball well on its next possession and found Morin open for a 3-pointer to knock the deficit down to five, 65-60, with 2:31 to go. Another Morin 3-pointer cut it to five, 68-63, at the 1:17 mark.

“I thought we played pretty good defense. Overall, our effort was good, but they hit some tough shots,” said Morin.

Speed, a Seattle native, had 19 points and seven assists, both are top totals for a GCU player this season. He also had a team-best two steals to go with four rebounds. Morin had a career-high 14 points and tied his career-best for 3-pointers with four.

“Seattle Pacific is a really good, veteran basketball team and you can’t make too many mistakes against a team like that. You make mistakes and they make you pay,” said Speed. “We definitely had great effort. It’s still very early in the season. We’ve done good things in stretches we just have to put it all together for 40 minutes.”

Rony Tchatchoua had 12 points, his second straight double-digit performance. Freshman Chris Johnson had a team-high seven rebounds.
Seattle Pacific guard Chris Banchero led all scorers with 34 points, including 8-of-14 from 3-point range.

Grand Canyon will go to Seattle next weekend for the Falcon Classic. It will play Central Washington Friday and have a rematch with the Seattle Pacific Saturday.

Box Score