Completed Event: Men's Basketball at UNLV on February 7, 2026 , Loss , 78, to, 80
M Basketball
at UNLV
L 78-80
Grand Canyon University Athletics
Saturday, March 3
Phoenix, Ariz.
7 p.m.
Grand Canyon
81
vs
68
CSU Bakersfield
Photo by: Slaven Gujic
Rapid Recap: GCU 81, CSUB 68
3/3/2018 8:32:00 PM | Men's Basketball, Paul Coro
It took seniors to guide Grand Canyon to a third consecutive 20-win season.
It does not hurt to have a freshman who has revitalized the Lopes offense either.
On a Saturday night that began with senior Keonta Vernon's pregame engagement to his girlfriend, GCU solidified a WAC Basketball Tournament engagement with its third consecutive double-digit victory.
Playing well at the right time, the Lopes avenged a road loss to Cal State Bakersfield by beating the Roadrunners 81-68 in the regular-season finale at GCU Arena. A Senior Night crowd of 7,372 fans, the ninth largest in Lopes program history, watched the seniors go out in style with Joshua Braun scoring 14 points, Casey Benson posting 13 points and Vernon tallying eight points, nine rebounds and a career-high five assists with his mom in the Havocs student section.
The Senior Night went so well that the Havocs' pleas of "We want Cheick!" were answered with 1:41 to go when senior walk-on Cheick Sy-Savane entered the game with Braun, Vernon and Benson still playing.
The victory, closing out a 16-2 regular season home record, puts GCU (20-10, 9-5) as the No. 3 seed in a WAC Tournament first-round game against No. 6 seed Missouri-Kansas City (10-21, 5-9) on Thursday at Orleans Arena. Tip-off will be at noon in Las Vegas (1 p.m. Phoenix time).
The seniors would not be in the position they are for the WAC Tournament without freshman center Alessandro Lever, who posted his seventh 20-point game since Jan. 18. Lever tallied 23 points and eight rebounds in 27 minutes on six-of-12 shooting, including three 3-pointers.
The pregame emotions carried over to the Lopes' start, when Bakersfield (12-17, 5-9) opened the game with a 3-pointer and the Lopes followed with 14 unanswered points. Bakersfield threw a challenge at GCU before the half with Bakersfield's Ricky Holden scoring eight unanswered points to trip the Lopes' halftime lead to 35-28. But GCU kept command of the second half and finished the game with 46.2 percent shooting, its best effort since making 51.9 percent of its shots against UMKC on Feb. 1.
The Lopes fed off 15 Bakersfield turnovers to outscore Bakersfield 16-4 in fastbreak points.
Return to gculopes.com for Paul Coro's full game recap with comments from Dan Majerle and players.
It does not hurt to have a freshman who has revitalized the Lopes offense either.
On a Saturday night that began with senior Keonta Vernon's pregame engagement to his girlfriend, GCU solidified a WAC Basketball Tournament engagement with its third consecutive double-digit victory.
Playing well at the right time, the Lopes avenged a road loss to Cal State Bakersfield by beating the Roadrunners 81-68 in the regular-season finale at GCU Arena. A Senior Night crowd of 7,372 fans, the ninth largest in Lopes program history, watched the seniors go out in style with Joshua Braun scoring 14 points, Casey Benson posting 13 points and Vernon tallying eight points, nine rebounds and a career-high five assists with his mom in the Havocs student section.
The Senior Night went so well that the Havocs' pleas of "We want Cheick!" were answered with 1:41 to go when senior walk-on Cheick Sy-Savane entered the game with Braun, Vernon and Benson still playing.
The victory, closing out a 16-2 regular season home record, puts GCU (20-10, 9-5) as the No. 3 seed in a WAC Tournament first-round game against No. 6 seed Missouri-Kansas City (10-21, 5-9) on Thursday at Orleans Arena. Tip-off will be at noon in Las Vegas (1 p.m. Phoenix time).
The seniors would not be in the position they are for the WAC Tournament without freshman center Alessandro Lever, who posted his seventh 20-point game since Jan. 18. Lever tallied 23 points and eight rebounds in 27 minutes on six-of-12 shooting, including three 3-pointers.
The pregame emotions carried over to the Lopes' start, when Bakersfield (12-17, 5-9) opened the game with a 3-pointer and the Lopes followed with 14 unanswered points. Bakersfield threw a challenge at GCU before the half with Bakersfield's Ricky Holden scoring eight unanswered points to trip the Lopes' halftime lead to 35-28. But GCU kept command of the second half and finished the game with 46.2 percent shooting, its best effort since making 51.9 percent of its shots against UMKC on Feb. 1.
The Lopes fed off 15 Bakersfield turnovers to outscore Bakersfield 16-4 in fastbreak points.
Return to gculopes.com for Paul Coro's full game recap with comments from Dan Majerle and players.
Players Mentioned
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