Lopes fade at Louisville

Saturday, December 23

Louisville, Ky.

11 a.m.

Grand Canyon

9-4

Louisville

10-2

GRAND CANYON

LOUISVILLE

12/23/2017 3:05:00 PM | Men's Basketball, Paul Coro

Box Score

GCU led most of the 1st half in a 74-56 loss

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

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Louisville won the NCAA National Championship in 2013.

Grand Canyon moved to Division I basketball in 2013.

The Lopes quickly have elevated their program but not enough to sustain a challenge against a perennial power on the road for an entire game.

Grand Canyon led Louisville for two-thirds of the first half Saturday but turnovers kept the Lopes from doing more damage before their self-inflicted damage sent Louisville to a 74-56 win in front of 16,841 fans at KFC Yum! Center.

The Lopes had reduced their turnovers to 11.0 per game over the past five games but committed 19 on Saturday, including 12 in the first half. GCU (9-4) still led Louisville (10-2) until the Cardinals closed the half on a 10-2 run but remained within a point until the offense vanished with 16:53 remaining in the game.

Starting with a potential tying 3-pointer from senior point guard Casey Benson that rimmed around and around and out, the Lopes missed 10 of their next 11 shots and committed four turnovers during a 21-3 Louisville onslaught.

"We've had a hard time scoring all year long," GCU head coach Dan Majerle said. "The matchup zone really bothered us. I thought we had too many careless turnovers early. We hung in there early and tried to battle. We just didn't have it tonight. I'm a little disappointed in our effort, but like I said, that's a really good team. They've got a lot of talent."

The Lopes were far better than their last Louisville visit, a 48-point loss in 2015, but were seeking a breakthrough program victory after playing the Cardinals close last season with Joshua Braun out.

Instead, GCU shot 40 percent from the field and had its third-worst turnover game of the season. Braun and Benson, the Lopes' leading scorers, made five of 17 shots combined.

"You've got to just keep challenging shots," Louisville head coach David Padgett said. "That was a big point coming into this game – get off your feet and challenge shots.

"A good player like that (Braun), who we've been playing against for three years now, he's going to make big plays and he made a couple but we did a good job pretty much."

Benson delivered a game-high seven assists with sophomore guard Oscar Frayer scoring a team-high 14 points on six-of-eight shooting.

After getting 50 bench points to dominate Longwood on Thursday, the Lopes reserves went two for 14 from the field for six points against Louisville.

Cardinals power forward Ray Spalding, a 6-foot-10 junior, set career highs for points (21) and rebounds (16). Meanwhile, a late-game push from GCU was thwarted when its starting big men, senior Keonta Vernon and freshman Alessandro Lever, fouled out.

"We played super well in the first half," said Lever, who continued his improvement with a 12-point, four-assist game. "In the second half, something changed. We never let the game go. We always try to play hard. Maybe we lose too many balls and weren't focused on doing things easy, like we can do."

The first half had Louisville fans murmuring. Benson opened the game with consecutive 3-pointers on GCU's second and third possessions. It was an 11-3 Lopes lead. Then it was a 15-11 Lopes lead. If not for nine turnovers in the game's first 12 minutes, GCU might never have lost a lead that it kept until the last four minutes of the first half.

The Lopes were slowed particularly by Louisville's full-court press. That delayed GCU from getting into its offense, which then struggled with the Cardinals' match-up zone defense.

"The careless turnovers, not so much of what Louisville did, but us just being too casual with the basketball and the worst thing you can do is have live-ball turnovers against a team like that and we had a lot of those," Majerle said. "I'm disappointed, but we kept on fighting there in the second half. We made a little bit of a run, but it wasn't enough."

Eventually, Louisville found its way to the paint too often by dribble drives or post-ups and took command. The Cardinals finished with 34 points in the paint, which were helped by 15 offensive rebounds.

The Lopes travel Sunday to Las Vegas, where they will spend Christmas before having a Tuesday practice in preparation for Wednesday's game against Morgan State at Orleans Arena, site of the Western Athletic Conference Basketball Tournament.

Follow Paul Coro on Twitter: @paulcoro.