Hot second half not enough as Lopes fall to No. 24 Saint Mary's

Tuesday, March 1

Moraga, Calif.

8 P.M.

Grand Canyon

24-6

Saint Mary's (Calif.)

25-4

Grand Canyon University

Saint Mary's (CA)

Photo by: Darryl Webb

Hot second half not enough as Lopes fall to No. 24 Saint Mary's

3/1/2016 11:51:00 PM | Men's Basketball

Box Score

By: Charles Hampton

MORAGA, Calif. -- The Grand Canyon men's basketball team dropped its second consecutive game as it was unable to overcome a poor offensive first half while falling to No. 24 Saint Mary's 73-64 at the McKeon Pavilion in Moraga, Calif. on Tuesday night.

"We hung in there and I was proud of the way our guys played," head coach Dan Majerle said after the game. "We played really hard in the second half. We scored 19 first half and 45 in the second. We came out and battled. That's a really good team. We were right there."

Grandy Glaze led the Lopes with 16 points on 8-of-11 shooting from the field and nine rebounds, while Ryan Majerle came off the bench to score 13 points on 4-of-7 shooting from behind the arc.

The Lopes dug themselves in an early 10-0 hole as they were unable to get a bucket to drop in the first four minutes of the game. After Glaze hit a runner in the lane to get the Lopes on the board, things didn't go much better during the first half. GCU shot just 26 percent and were a dreadful 1-of-9 from 3-point range. Luckily for the Lopes, they stepped up their game on the defensive end and held the high-powered Gaels' offense to only 27 points despite the fact it shot 45.5 percent from the field.

Grand Canyon capitalized on the offensive boards as best it could, getting numerous second-chances to fight to stay in the game. The Lopes outrebounded the Gaels 23-17 but were dominant on the offensive glass with nine offensive rebounds in the first half compared to none for Saint Mary's. The Gaels took a 27-19 lead into intermission. GCU's 19 points was there lowest output for a half this season.

"When you shoot 25 percent and you're only down eight in the first half, that's pretty good," Majerle added. "I thought we did a great job on the rebounding. We gave up zero offensive rebounds. I think we came up with seven or eight offensive rebounds ourselves. We really battled in the first half. We couldn't make a shot, couldn't get it going, but we hung in the game."

Despite their cold first half, the Lopes came out red-hot in the second half. They hit their first five shots and hit 9-of-12 shots to start the second half. Unfortunately for Grand Canyon, Saint Mary's hit at the same clip to start the half as well.

After Dane Pineau hit a layup to put Saint Mary's up 49-39, Ryan Majerle hit a 3 to spark an 11-3 run that brought the Lopes with two points, 52-50, with 9:04 remaining in the second half. GCU was unable to capitalize as it missed layups on consecutive possessions, unable to tie or take the lead. That would be as close as the Lopes would get as both team's traded buckets down the stretch. After the two schools combined for 36 total points in the first half, they combined for 91 points in the second half with the Gaels and Lopes scored 46 and 45 points, respectively.

DeWayne Russell bounced back from a first half that saw him score only two points on 1-of-5 shooting from the field to score 14 points after going 5-of-7 from the field in the second half. De'Andre Davis came off the bench to score four points but led the Lopes with five assists in 23 minutes of action. Keonta Vernon added six points and tied for the team lead with nine rebounds.

"I was happy with our effort," Majerle said. "Hopefully this is something we can build on. We have to find a way to go to Utah Valley and get a win."

The Lopes will close out the regular season on Saturday afternoon in Orem, Utah, where they take on the Wolverines of Utah Valley at 2 p.m. MT. The Lopes won the previous matchup at home this season 99-88 on Jan. 16.