Lopes go to extremes in rout

Saturday, December 9

Phoenix, Ariz.

7 p.m.

Grand Canyon

Grambling State

12/9/2017 9:37:00 PM | Men's Basketball, Paul Coro

Box Score Photo Gallery Dan Majerle Press Conference

GCU sets scoring high in win vs. Grambling

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

Grand Canyon scored more points than it has in any game this season.

The Lopes kept an opponent to less than 60 points for the fourth time in eight games.

Those two pluses made for a night full of positives as GCU enjoyed its best performance of the season for an 87-53 rout of Grambling State in front of 6,829 fans at GCU Arena.

The Lopes (6-2) outscored the Tigers (3-6) by 33 points over the game's final 32 minutes with an offense that moved the ball and bodies to crack Grambling's zone defense and a hustling defense that forced 21 Grambling turnovers and denied a made field goal for more than seven minutes of the second half.

"We needed that kind of win," GCU head coach Dan Majerle said. "It was huge."

GCU shot a season-high 55.2 percent, piercing a 2-3 zone quickly with senior point guard Casey Benson assisting on seven of the Lopes' first eight baskets. GCU assisted on 14 of 17 first-half made baskets, using a 24-5 run to break the game open with scoring from eight different players during the run.

Five of Benson's eight assists contributed to senior power forward Keonta Vernon's perfect night from the field. Vernon hit eight of eight shots, making the most shots without a miss of any GCU player in the Division I era and the fourth most in program history.

The Lopes rediscovered their alleyoop connection three times to Vernon and he slammed twice more. But he also showed range, knocking down a baseline 14-foot jumper to close out the Lopes' 39-21 first half.

"Inside-out, everybody was playing good," said Vernon, who finished with 19 points and six rebounds. "It's easy to just let it go without worrying about missing because you've got the teammates to back you up. They were actually telling me to shoot it after I haven't made a jump shot all year."

Vernon avoided foul trouble but was not needed for extended minutes with the Lopes opening a 30-point lead with more than 11 minutes left to play.

"Just his physical presence around the basket was big," Majerle said of Vernon.

Majerle altered his starting lineup for the first time this season, putting sophomore guard Fiifi Aidoo and freshman power forward Alessandro Lever in place of sophomore guard Oscar Frayer and freshman power forward Roberts Blumbergs. The new starting five re-entered the game with more than five minutes to go in the first half, stretching a 3-pointer by senior point guard Shaq Carr into 12 unanswered points.

"It wasn't because Oscar was playing bad or Roberts was playing bad, we just needed a new look," Majerle said. "Fiifi was somebody that was practicing hard and gave us a spark defensively. Alessandro is a really hard worker as a freshman, I thought he deserved a chance. I don't know if it provided anything."

Senior guard Joshua Braun added 13 points for GCU but the Lopes' most efficient scorers were Carr, with 11 points in 12 minutes, and junior power forward Matt Jackson, with 12 points in 13 minutes. Jackson was out of the rotation in Tuesday's loss but made five of six shots Saturday while adding two steals and a blocked shot.

"That's our best win of the season," Jackson said. "We can play so much better, though. We've got to keep working. We've got a few good tests coming up."

For the sixth time in eight games, GCU held an opponent less than 40 percent shooting (35.8 percent). For the third time, a Lopes opponent committed more than 20 turnovers (21). The Lopes entered the game ranked 15^th in the nation for opponent 3-point shooting and dropped that percentage by keeping Grambling, which had won at Georgia Tech, to two-of-12 shooting on 3s.

The defense allowed Benson to set up transition and early-offense opportunities. Even when GCU did not strike quickly, its offense still worked more crisply with ball movement, penetration and limited turnovers after a sloppy start. The rout helped clear the GCU bench, setting up a late-game stretch with Parker Dale's debut to Havocs screams, Cheick Sy-Savane's 3-pointer and Ibrahima Sankare's athletic drive.

"We did a really good job of moving the basketball early, getting in the paint, not settling for jump shots," Majerle said. "We took the shots when they were there but we didn't swing-swing-shooter. We had some penetration. That's one thing that Alessandro is really good at for his size, he gets in there and finds people.

"We just can't settle for shots. It's much better when you can get it inside then it comes outside off the penetration. A couple times we just start living by the jump shot where we just swing it on the perimeter and people are just standing around and we can't do that."

Follow Paul Coro on Twitter: @paulcoro.