GCU's Rally From a 17-Point Deficit Falls Short

Thursday, January 20

San Francisco, CA

7:30 p.m.

Grand Canyon

Academy of Art

Chris Johnson

1/20/2011 11:48:41 PM | Men's Basketball

By: Steve Heath

Down 17 points, Grand Canyon (7-6, 2-1) tied the game with 34 seconds to go, but Academy of Art (4-12, 1-5) junior forward Keith Davis scored with 1.3 seconds remaining to hand the ‘Lopes a 60-58 Pacific West Conference loss at San Francisco State University Thursday.

Senior center Gaby Ngoundjo (Douala, Cameroon, Little Rock Christian, Charlotte) scored on a goaltending call to tie the game 58-58.

“Academy of Art is a much better team than last year,” said GCU coach Russ Pennell. “We knew that coming in. I felt the first half they out-played us and that really bothered me. I don’t think we should ever be out-worked and I was disappointed in our (first-half) effort.

“We showed what we were capable of defensively in the second half.”

Trailing 46-31 at halftime, GCU held AAU to only 14 second-half points and 23.1 percent shooting. For the first 20 minutes, the Knights shot 62.1 percent from the field. The teams traded leads during the early portion of the half, but the Knights went on a 14-2 run to lead 22-11.

“I think we lost the game in the first half,” said Ngoundjo, who was part of a group that came off the bench to spark the team in the second half. “I don’t think we were ready to play. The first half, we have to be ready. We have to be ready for every minute.”

AAU scored the first bucket of the second half to go up 17, but GCU got the margin under double figures, 53-45, at the 10:35 mark on an alley-oop pass from junior guard Fletcher Wynn (Orlando, Fla., Apopka, Louisburg College) to freshman forward Chris Johnson (Phoenix, Ariz., Highland), who led the team with 12 points.

A 6-0 GCU run followed shortly with a bucket from senior forward/guard Rony Tchatchoua (Douala, Cameroon, Little Rock Christian, New Hampshire) and two from sophomore guard Brad Carroll (Chandler, Ariz., Corona del Sol, Milwaukee). It cut the deficit to 56-52.

Two strong plays inside from junior forward Justin Wesolowski (Mesa, Ariz., Mountain View, Northern Colorado) and Ngoundjo cut it to 58-56 with 4:50 left.

Prior to Davis’s game-winning basket, the Knights hadn’t scored since the 6:13 mark. The decider was also Davis’s lone second-half basket. He scored 16 in the first half.

“It was a disappointing loss,” added Pennell. “It’s one we could have won and should have won. (We) were way too casual (on defense) in the first half. In the second half, our pressure was much, much better.”

Ngoundjo scored nine. Wynn had seven points and four assists. Wesolowski and Steven Morin (Scottsdale, Ariz., Saguaro), who hit the team’s lone 3-pointer during the first two minutes of the game, had seven. Wesolowski had a team-high six boards.

GCU hit just 1-of-14 3-point tries and were outrebounded 41-27. The Antelopes got 36 points from their bench.

Grand Canyon wraps up its three-game northern California trip Saturday at Dominican.

Box Score