Lopes merry to win, weary about 3s

Saturday, December 2

Phoenix, Ariz.

7 p.m.

Grand Canyon

5-1

UC Riverside

2-5

UC Riverside

Grand Canyon

Photo by: Michael Rincon

12/2/2017 9:47:00 PM | Men's Basketball, Paul Coro

Box Score Photo Gallery Dan Majerle Press Conference

GCU defense overcome cold 3-point shooting game

By: <a href="http://gculopes.com/index.aspx?path=coro">Paul Coro</a>

With the Havocs back Saturday night, it was "O Come, All Ye Faithful" in GCU Arena.

With Grand Canyon's 3-point shooting, it was "Baby, It's Cold Outside" with four makes on 36 attempts.

With the Lopes' defense, it was a "Silent Night" enough for California-Riverside's offense that GCU pulled out a 68-56 win that was more pleasing in results than aesthetics for a festive crowd fo 6,844.

The Lopes (5-1) avenged last week's loss to San Diego and last year's loss to Riverside in grinding fashion. They hit the boards harder, scoring 20 points on second chances. They trapped, applied ball pressure and switched quickly to swipe balls and rotate into passing lanes, tallying 12 steals to help outscore Riverside 14-2 on fastbreaks.

"Anytime you go four for 36 from 3 and win, you did something right," GCU head coach Dan Majerle said. "I thought activity-wise we were good. We forced 24 turnovers. We were aggressive. We had a couple lapses but for the most part we played hard."

GCU was the Western Athletic Conference 3-point shooting leader but has made eight of 59 3-point shots (13.6 percent) in the past two games. The big shocker Saturday was that starting guards Joshua Braun and Casey Benson, the team's top shooters, each missed seven tries without a make.

It was not for lock of trying to adjust their radar because they set the program's Division I-era record for 3-point attempts (36).

"It's just a matter of shooting with confidence and having short-term memory coming into next game," said Benson, who contributed elsewhere with 12 points, seven assists and four steals.

"We got good looks. We executed. It just didn't fall. We started to rush a little bit and press once some didn't fall."

Riverside (2-5) dared GCU to shoot from the perimeter with a zone defense that GCU had yet to face. Lopes freshman power forward Robert Blumbergs was the only player to make more than one, hitting two of seven tries.

Other than Blumbergs, the Lopes were 0 for 16 on 3s in the first half but led 38-27 at halftime.

"They were wide open," said Majerle, who even told the team to stop shooting 3s at one point in the second half. "You got to just jump up and shoot them and make them. You should fall into 10 shots out of 36."

Majerle used 12 players Saturday in search of a combination to put Riverside away. The Lopes led 61-45 with 5:26 remaming but went scoreless for four minutes. Fortunately for the Lopes, Riverside shot only 38.0 percent and lost starter Brandon Rosser when he fouled out with 9:41 remaining.

Blumbergs led GCU in points (14) and shared the rebounding lead (seven) with one of his two best efforts of the season. Majerle had called Blumbergs into his office earlier in the day to frankly warn him that he might have to move him to the bench if his struggles continued.

"It's time," Majerle said he told Blumbergs said. "You're way too talented to be playing the way you've been playing."

Blumbergs entered Saturday's game with 29 percent shooting and a 4.8 scoring average. He said he already had plans to change his ways after a week to think about his two-point game against San Diego.

"I was going to play a little bit more aggressive," Blumbergs said. "I talked to the coach. That helped me a little it.

"I was ready to make adjustments to pick up my game."

The Lopes missed their first 10 3-point shots of the game but they leaned on their defense to still lead. The Lopes held Riverside to seven points in the game's first 10 minutes.

In its five victories, GCU had held opponents to 61 or fewer points each time. As seniors, Benson set a career high for steals (four) and Keonta Vernon set one for blocked shots (four).

"We've been pretty good defensively," Majerle said. "Last game (against San Diego), we weren't tough enough down the stretch. Our focus from here on in is going to be defense. If we didn't play good defense tonight, we lose by 15. We can't shoot the ball like that and not play defense. We're going to have to hang our hat on defense and rebounding and causing turnovers and getting out and running and getting easy layups because, right now, we can't shoot the ball."

Follow Paul Coro on Twitter: @paulcoro.