Rally falls shy in WAC home opener

Saturday, January 11

Phoenix, Ariz.

6 p.m.

Grand Canyon

5-11,0-2WAC

California Baptist

12-5,3-1WAC

California Baptist

Grand Canyon

1/11/2020 10:02:00 PM | Men's Basketball, Paul Coro

Box Score Postgame with Coach Majerle Photo Gallery

GCU's 11-0 run cut CBU lead to 1 in final minute

By: Paul Coro

The start of WAC play was supposed to offer a fresh start for Grand Canyon's season-long struggles.

Instead, the Lopes are left with a fresh perspective after two conference games delivered a bad case of the woulda-coulda-shouldas. A week after losing a late lead to CSU Bakersfield's furious comeback, GCU chased down California Baptist with a late 11-0 run to pull within a point before losing 61-57 at a sold-out GCU Arena.

The Lopes (5-11, 0-2 WAC) endured two winless single-game weeks that did the damage of a normal two-game conference week. GCU head coach Dan Majerle took the onus for the disappointing start but his players know better after a 22-game winning streak against the Lancers ended.

"It's time for us to be men," said Lopes junior Carlos Johnson, who shared the team scoring lead at 18 points with senior center Alessandro Lever. "There are no more excuses. There's no more talking or meetings. We have to go out there and get it done. Everybody has to sacrifice everything for real.

"It's on all of us. We know how passionate Coach is about the game and how he has our best interests. We have to go out there and have his best interests too."

GCU held the nation's 15th-ranked scoring offense 21 points below its average with CBU (12-5, 3-1 WAC) shooting 35.8% from the field. But the Lopes' offensive struggles were worse for much of the game.

Through the game's first 25 minutes, GCU only scored 24 points on 10-for-37 shooting (27%). The Lopes found a better stride for the final 15 minutes, scoring 33 points on 12-for-28 shooting (43%) but ended with two misses when they needed everything to go right to complete the comeback.

GCU trailed by as much as 15 points with 14 minutes to play but used an 8-0 rally to cut the CBU lead to three with 6:28 remaining, when Lever scored on a post-up.

The Lancers stretched their lead back to 58-46 with 3:32 to go before GCU staged another rally. The Lopes were 0 for 10 from 3-point range until freshman point guard Jovan Blacksher Jr. sparked the comeback with 3 and junior guard Mikey Dixon bookended the 11-0 rally with another 3 that cut the Lancers lead to 58-57 with 46.9 seconds remaining.

"We picked up our energy," Majerle said. "We started flying around guarding somebody."

The intensified GCU defense created three consecutive turnovers with steals from senior power forward Lorenzo Jenkins and Lever and a forced backcourt violation with Johnson pressuring WAC Preseason Player of the Year Milan Acquaah, who went 4 for 13 from the field with six turnovers.

But CBU thwarted the effort when Lancers guard Brandon Boyd used a screen to score on a drive and guard Ferron Flavors Jr. closed it theLancers win with free throws after a Dixon missed 3.

"It starts with me," Majerle said. "We're not good enough right now. We've just got to keep working. It doesn't come down to any thing, but I was very disappointed that the fight wasn't there until it had to be at the end, and we tried to make a comeback."

The Lancers went from two first-half turnovers to nine second-half turnovers and won despite 35.8% shooting. Only Texas and California limited CBU to worse shooting this season.

"We were supposed to win and we didn't win," Johnson said. "We didn't play how we were supposed to play. We have to be more disciplined and make shots."

The Lopes were hoping for a breakout night from Dixon, who went 6 for 13 from the field for 14 points in his fourth GCU game. He was 0 for 4 on 3s until the clutch one in the final minute. Johnson and Blacksher shared the team rebounding lead with eight each, as the Lopes kept WAC rebounding leader De'jon Davis to six boards.

The CBU bench outscored the GCU reserves 14-0 and the Lopes recorded a season-low five assists after averaging 13.5 assists for the previous 10 games.

"It's disappointing -- an effort like that in front of this crowd (7,054-fan sellout) on our first WAC game," Majerle said. "We didn't get it going until the end of the game.

"This has been a terrible year so far, and it is on me. But we'll get it right. There's no question we're going to get it right. If it's not this year, then we will get it next year. I'll come in Monday and fight my butt off at practice and do the best I can to help coach this team."

Follow Paul Coro on Twitter: @paulcoro.