Lopes look to rebound at UMKC

Thursday, Feb. 14 \| 5 p.m. (Phoenix time) \| Kansas City, Mo.

	GRAND CANYON LOPES (14-9, 7-3)	VS	UMKC KANGAROOS (8-16, 3-6)

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After Grand Canyon had been outrebounded in its first two home losses of the season, Lopes head coach Dan Majerle ended his postgame press conference Thursday night with a smile and a parting promise: "We will rebound."

The Lopes need to do that in both the victory and rebounding columns.

Dropping a two-game homestand for the first time in its WAC history likely has put the regular-season title out of reach for the Lopes (14-9, 7-3 WAC), who trail by New Mexico State (20-4, 9-1 WAC) by two games with seven conference games to play and the tiebreaker going to the Aggies.

GCU would like a third crack at NMSU in the WAC Tournament but the Lopes will need to rebuild momentum before then, starting with games at Kansas City on Thursday and Chicago State on Saturday. Practice preparation was focused on rebounding drills after the board work went from a team strength to a costly shortcoming, especially Saturday when the Aggies scored 27 points on second chances.

"We refocused on it and it's a point of emphasis," Majerle said. "It's been proven that if we win the rebounding war, we have an excellent chance of winning the game (13-2 this season). So our guys have to buy into it."

GCU had outrebounded NMSU and Texas-Rio Grande Valley in road losses and has an average rebound advantage of 3.0 per game on the season but lost that pursuit last week.

There has been an emphasis on gang rebounding since being outrebounded by 11 in a season-opening loss at South Dakota State. The response was clear when that rebound margin turned to a 5.4 average for a 19-game span and senior guard Trey Drechsel became the WAC's leading defensive rebounder.

But on Saturday, NMSU's offensive rebounds were lethal. The Aggies made 11 of 12 shots on second chances and had a turnover and two free throws on the other two offensive rebounds. It wasted a GCU defensive effort that kept NMSU to 32.6 percent shooting on its initial shots.

"We did a lot of rebounding this week," Lopes sophomore point guard Damari Milstead said. "It got intense. Rebounding is about will so we had a lot of drills to test our fight. I look forward to seeing how well rebound in the game."

GCU previously dominated this week's opponents in home matchups, beating Kansas City 78-50 on Jan. 17 and trouncing Chicago State 80-46 on Jan. 19 amid a five-game winning streak that halted last week. The Lopes still have a three-game road winning streak.

"We had a meeting and I told them, 'We could go one of two ways: we can shut it down or we can play for March and get better and put ourselves in great position and hopefully meet New Mexico State again and beat them,' " Majerle said. "But to do that, we have to continue to work. They've been resilient all year long. They work hard. They took it fine and understand that it's not over until March.

"Our guys have to realize that right now we're not better than New Mexico State. But that doesn't mean we can't be. There's not a big separation. It could've went either way. But right now we're not better than New Mexico State."

GCU also is getting accustomed to playing without senior forward Gerard Martin, who missed the past two games for a season-ending knee injury.

The Lopes have a month to rebuild the roll they had entering last week with four consecutive double-digit wins.

"We want to be our best by March," Milstead said. "We realize getting first place is kind of out of the picture so we just want to get better and win every game ahead of us. We want to get to the conference tournament and get our mojo back."

Follow Paul Coro on Twitter: @paulcoro.

Thursday, Feb. 14 | 5 p.m. (Phoenix time) | Kansas City, Mo.

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Players Mentioned

Trey Drechsel

Gerard Martin

Damari Milstead

Grand Canyon University Athletics