Tight finish ends in loss at USD

Saturday, December 29

San Diego, Calif.

8 p.m.

Grand Canyon

7-6

San Diego

11-4

Grand Canyon

San Diego

12/30/2018 12:02:00 AM | Men's Basketball, Paul Coro

Box Score PHOTO GALLERY Postgame with Coach Majerle

Lever scores season-high 27 points in 61-58 loss to Toreros

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

SAN DIEGO – Grand Canyon built and executed a plan to handle San Diego scoring standout Isaiah Pineiro with waves of defenders and discipline to deny his strengths.

But after missing nine of 11 shots, Pineiro hit the most unlikely weapon of his arsenal twice in crunch time. His consecutive 3-pointers foiled GCU's comeback and overcame Lopes sophomore center Alessandro Lever's season-high 27 points. San Diego moved to 8-0 at home with a 61-58 victory against GCU in front of a season-best crowd of 2,969 fans that included about 1,000 Lopes devotees.

GCU ended its toughest nonconference schedule ever with the type of loss that dotted November and December. Like defeats to South Dakota State, Seton Hall and Nevada, the Lopes (7-6) put themselves in position for a quality win away from home but wound up with a narrow loss.

This one at San Diego (11-4) was GCU's tightest defeat yet with the Lopes taking a lead with 4:01 to go. The teams exchanged the lead for the following six possessions and GCU was within three points for its final two chances to score. Holding one of the nation's most efficient offenses to 41.7 percent shooting from the field did not prove to be enough.

"I think it's always good when you play good teams," Lopes head coach Dan Majerle said. "Losing sucks and you've got to be able to handle it and make sure you're looking at getting better instead of looking at the losing. We played everybody tough, except for Texas. That was an aberration of how bad we played and how great they played but, for the most part in our nonconference season, I thought we played everybody really well. Obviously, we wanted and probably should've gotten a couple wins out of that, but it's a growing process and hopefully we've learned from it and hopefully we'll learn from this."

GCU was in position for a second-half surge because Lever carried the Lopes in the first half, scoring 18 of their 24 points and playing all but 19 seconds of the 20 minutes. Lever matched his season high for shot attempts in a game (17 on Saturday vs. Mississippi Valley State) in the first half, when no teammate made more than one shot and GCU did not get to the free throw line.

The Lopes' defense was strong enough to only trail 28-24 at halftime but the starting unit opened each half poorly to dig an eight-point deficit each time.

GCU senior guard Trey Drechsel scored 11 points in the second half to accompany Lever and rally the Lopes, who made a 9-0 run that was capped with a Drechsel jumper and 3-pointer for a 51-50 lead with 4:01 to play.

The teams went back and forth until Lever scored the Lopes' final points with two free throws that tied the game at 58-58 with 1:15 remaining. After Pineiro followed with his second 3, GCU came up empty on a Lever post-up try and Carlos Johnson transition miss in the final seconds.

"You know a Dan Majerle team is going to be super-competitive, physical, great defensively, sound offensively and run good stuff," San Diego head coach Sam Scholl said. "They give you so many challenges so I was proud of our guys to step up."

Lever made 10 shots in a game twice last season but has done it in consecutive games as Majerle made more of a point to run the offense through him on the post. The Toreros adjusted to send more double-teams at him in the second half but his presence fouled out San Diego center Yauhen Massalski and gave him his 11^th 20-point game in 40 career starts.

"He's a heck of a player," Scholl said. "He's just so big and strong and skilled. He can score in so many different ways and they run good stuff for him to get him good touches. Our big guys did a good job to battle him and make sure his catches were farther from the rim."

San Diego was shooting 48.7 percent for the season but was playing for the first time without injured point guard Isaiah Wright, who nearly posted a triple-double in the Toreros' win at GCU Arena last season. The Lopes also were playing their third consecutive game without senior power forward Michael Finke but his starting lineup replacement, senior Matt Jackson, began the defensive job on Pineiro. Oscar Frayer and Gerard Martin also took turns on Pineiro, whose 20.6 scoring average ranked 36^th in the nation entering the game.

Pineiro finished with 17 points and 12 rebounds but he and his Toreros teammates had to rely on getting to the free throw line to stave off GCU in the second half. Senior Olin Carter III moved from off-guard and handled 39 minutes at point guard.

"We tried to keep him (Pineiro) from going right and getting to the basket," Majerle said. "He's a talented kid and we knew we'd have a hard time with him but, for the most part, we did a good job. He back-cut us a few times, but that's what they're good at. This is a really efficient offensive team, and for us to hold them to 42 percent shooting is really good, especially the way we've been playing defense as of late. Defensively, we were there, but we just couldn't score enough baskets. If you hold San Diego to 61 points, you think you have a pretty good chance to win the game."

GCU only made seven turnovers but shot 38.9 percent from the field, giving the Lopes three sub-40 percent shooting games this season.

The influx of purple-plastered Lopes fans gave San Diego its largest home crowd of the season, drawing 1,081 more fans than Colorado's visit did.

GCU begins WAC play at home when Utah Valley (11-4) visits GCU Arena at 6 p.m. Thursday with another 6 p.m. home tip-off against Seattle (12-3) following on Saturday. GCU, Utah Valley and Seattle are considered the WAC's top three challengers to preseason conference favorite and reigning champion New Mexico State (10-3).

Follow Paul Coro on Twitter: @paulcoro.