Completed Event: Men's Basketball at Baylor on October 10, 2025 , Loss , 74, to, 79
M Basketball
at Baylor
L 74-79
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Grand Canyon University Athletics
Tuesday, November 5
Phoenix, Ariz.
7 p.m.
Grand Canyon
0-1,0-0WAC
73
vs
82
Davenport
1-1,0-0GLIAC
1
2
F
Davenport
35
47
82
Grand Canyon
28
45
73
Davenport stuns GCU in opener
11/5/2019 11:25:00 PM | Men's Basketball, Paul Coro
Lopes lost 82-73 with 2-for-19 shooting on 3s
The Grand Canyon season started poorly enough for the Lopes to feel like things can only get better after a humbling Tuesday night.
Three nights before a visit from Illinois, the Lopes began the regular season by trailing for the entirety of an 83-72 loss to Davenport. It was GCU's first defeat in a home opener since 2002.
The Lopes are an unproven shooting team but missed nine consecutive 3-point shots to start the game in a 24-11 hole.
The Lopes define themselves by defensive effort but gave up the third-most 3-pointers made in their Division I era and allowed 59.3% second-half shooting when it needed to rally.
The Lopes have been one of the 10 winningest home teams in the nation over the previous four seasons but trailed by as many as 16 to last season's 12th-ranked Division II team from Grand Rapids, Michigan.
"I knew this was going to be a process," GCU head coach Dan Majerle said in his postgame press conference after a long locker room talk with his team. "We played basically six, seven guys with Bryce (Okpoh) playing seven minutes. We lost some key pieces but nobody is coming through the door so this is what we have. We're going to continue to work at it. I like our guys but we have a long way to go and we'll figure it out. This is probably a good thing for us that we got spanked this way so maybe it'll open some eyes."
GCU is starting the season without returning starter Oscar Frayer and TCU transfer Jaylen Fisher, who are academically ineligible this semester, and St. John's transfer Mikey Dixon, who can start playing in mid-December. That left the Lopes with three players making their Division I debuts and five players making their GCU debuts in a seven-man rotation on Tuesday night.
The Lopes missed 12 of their first 13 shots but appeared able to shake off a 13-point hole in the first half when junior swingman Carlos Johnson scored seven consecutive points to spark a rally that reduced the deficit to three. But in a sign of things to come, Davenport's long-distance shooting answered every Lopes threat in front of a sold-out crowd of 7,074 fans, including Arizona Diamondbacks manager Torey Lovullo and Arizona Cardinals cornerback Byron Murphy.
Four Panthers accounted for the 15 3-pointers that Davenport made. Perhaps the most hurtful were consecutive 3s early in the second half after the 3-point defense was addressed at halftime. Less than four minutes into the second half, GCU trailed 46-30 and was shooting 25.7% from the field at the time. The Lopes made 19 of their last 27 shots (70.4%) but could not string together enough stops for the offensive turnaround to matter.
"The lesson is don't get punched in the mouth first," said Johnson, who led GCU in points (22) and rebounds (10). "Throw the first punch and obviously we didn't throw the first punch. We tried to last 12 rounds with them and they came up with the win. We have room for improvement. We should be able to make it right."
The Lopes made a furious rally with full-court pressure in the final two minutes for an 8-0 run but the urgency came far too late.
"Once we put the ball on the floor and got to the basket, we were pretty good," Majerle said. "Our guys just have to understand that we're not a 3-point shooting team."
GCU made 2 of 19 tries from 3-point range for a 39-point discrepancy beyond the arc with Davenport. It was a margin nearly as great as the difference in bench scoring, where the Panthers outscored the Lopes 37-6.
The Lopes were outrebounded 36-33 with their starting big men, 6-10 senior Alessandro Lever and 6-7 senior Lorenzo Jenkins, each grabbing three rebounds while 6-2 junior guard Isiah Brown chased down seven boards to go with 15 points, four assists, two steals and no turnovers.
"The only positive is these guys got a wake-up call," Majerle said.
The Lopes get two practice days to fix the sting of Tuesday's loss and prepare for Friday's game against Illinois, which beat Nicholls State 78-70 in overtime at home Tuesday night.
"All that will go out the window if we turn around and beat Illinois," Johnson said.
Follow Paul Coro on Twitter: @paulcoro.
Three nights before a visit from Illinois, the Lopes began the regular season by trailing for the entirety of an 83-72 loss to Davenport. It was GCU's first defeat in a home opener since 2002.
The Lopes are an unproven shooting team but missed nine consecutive 3-point shots to start the game in a 24-11 hole.
The Lopes define themselves by defensive effort but gave up the third-most 3-pointers made in their Division I era and allowed 59.3% second-half shooting when it needed to rally.
The Lopes have been one of the 10 winningest home teams in the nation over the previous four seasons but trailed by as many as 16 to last season's 12th-ranked Division II team from Grand Rapids, Michigan.
"I knew this was going to be a process," GCU head coach Dan Majerle said in his postgame press conference after a long locker room talk with his team. "We played basically six, seven guys with Bryce (Okpoh) playing seven minutes. We lost some key pieces but nobody is coming through the door so this is what we have. We're going to continue to work at it. I like our guys but we have a long way to go and we'll figure it out. This is probably a good thing for us that we got spanked this way so maybe it'll open some eyes."
GCU is starting the season without returning starter Oscar Frayer and TCU transfer Jaylen Fisher, who are academically ineligible this semester, and St. John's transfer Mikey Dixon, who can start playing in mid-December. That left the Lopes with three players making their Division I debuts and five players making their GCU debuts in a seven-man rotation on Tuesday night.
The Lopes missed 12 of their first 13 shots but appeared able to shake off a 13-point hole in the first half when junior swingman Carlos Johnson scored seven consecutive points to spark a rally that reduced the deficit to three. But in a sign of things to come, Davenport's long-distance shooting answered every Lopes threat in front of a sold-out crowd of 7,074 fans, including Arizona Diamondbacks manager Torey Lovullo and Arizona Cardinals cornerback Byron Murphy.
Four Panthers accounted for the 15 3-pointers that Davenport made. Perhaps the most hurtful were consecutive 3s early in the second half after the 3-point defense was addressed at halftime. Less than four minutes into the second half, GCU trailed 46-30 and was shooting 25.7% from the field at the time. The Lopes made 19 of their last 27 shots (70.4%) but could not string together enough stops for the offensive turnaround to matter.
"The lesson is don't get punched in the mouth first," said Johnson, who led GCU in points (22) and rebounds (10). "Throw the first punch and obviously we didn't throw the first punch. We tried to last 12 rounds with them and they came up with the win. We have room for improvement. We should be able to make it right."
The Lopes made a furious rally with full-court pressure in the final two minutes for an 8-0 run but the urgency came far too late.
"Once we put the ball on the floor and got to the basket, we were pretty good," Majerle said. "Our guys just have to understand that we're not a 3-point shooting team."
GCU made 2 of 19 tries from 3-point range for a 39-point discrepancy beyond the arc with Davenport. It was a margin nearly as great as the difference in bench scoring, where the Panthers outscored the Lopes 37-6.
The Lopes were outrebounded 36-33 with their starting big men, 6-10 senior Alessandro Lever and 6-7 senior Lorenzo Jenkins, each grabbing three rebounds while 6-2 junior guard Isiah Brown chased down seven boards to go with 15 points, four assists, two steals and no turnovers.
"The only positive is these guys got a wake-up call," Majerle said.
The Lopes get two practice days to fix the sting of Tuesday's loss and prepare for Friday's game against Illinois, which beat Nicholls State 78-70 in overtime at home Tuesday night.
"All that will go out the window if we turn around and beat Illinois," Johnson said.
Follow Paul Coro on Twitter: @paulcoro.
Team Stats
Daven
GCU
FG%
.492
.452
3FG%
.500
.105
FT%
.818
.789
RB
36
33
TO
18
12
STL
7
7
Game Leaders
Pts
22
FGM
8
3FGM
2
FTM
4
Pts
15
FGM
7
3FGM
0
FTM
1
Pts
15
FGM
7
3FGM
0
FTM
1
Pts
10
FGM
3
3FGM
0
FTM
4
Players Mentioned
G
/ Men's Basketball
G
/ Men's Basketball
G
/ Men's Basketball
F
/ Men's BasketballF
/ Men's BasketballG
/ Men's Basketball
C
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