Road roll continues at UTRGV

Thursday, January 30

Edinburg, Texas / UTRGV Fieldhouse

6 p.m. (Phoenix time)

Grand Canyon

9-12,4-3WAC

UT Rio Grande Valley

6-14,2-5WAC

Grand Canyon

UTRGV

1/30/2020 9:30:00 PM | Men's Basketball, Paul Coro

Box Score Postgame with Coach Majerle Postgame with Isiah Brown Photo Gallery

Brown scores 18 off bench in 3rd straight WAC road victory

By: Paul Coro

EDINBURG, Texas — Grand Canyon only trailed for nine seconds Thursday night but that makes it sound like its win at UT Rio Grande Valley came easier than it actually did.

The Lopes battled through a grit-and-grind game but another hot road shooting night led to a season-best scoring performance and an 87-79 victory at UTRGV Fieldhouse.

GCU (9-12, 4-3 WAC) won its third consecutive WAC road game by continuing the long-distance marksmanship that it showed on its last trip (15 for 26 on 3-pointers). The Lopes made 12 of 20 shots from 3-point range Thursday night for their highest total of the season and their third-best 3-point shooting clip (60%) of their Division I era.

Against the constant full-court pressure and half-court trapping of the Vaqueros, GCU overcame its rough spots (21 turnovers) by thrilling its coach with 19 assists on 29 baskets as it moved into a third-place tie in the conference.

"When we play that way, we're pretty good," GCU head coach Dan Majerle said. "It's no coincidence that you make shots when the ball moves and the extra guy gets a pass.

"This is always a hard place to play so, after a tough loss at home, our guys really bounced back."

GCU's 58.0% shooting, its best since 2014-15, was led by junior center Alessandro Lever, who played all 40 minutes for the first time in his career. :Lever finished with a team-high 20 points in addition to sharing the team leads for rebounds (six) and assists (six).

"He puts a lot of pressure on the other teams," Majerle said of Lever. "He has to be guarded. He has to be double-teamed. Good free throw shooter. He's the rock of our team, as far as on the offensive end. He lost all that weight for a reason. He's got to play 40 minutes."

GCU put five scorers in double figures for the second time in the past three games. This time, with junior guard Mikey Dixon fouling out in 27 minutes, Lopes junior reserve guard Isiah Brown stepped up with 18 points for his highest total since Nov. 25. Brown made 4 of 5 shots from 3-point range, including one in which he was nearly falling out of bounds for the Lopes' largest lead, 81-70, with 1:50 remaining.

"I think we figured it out a little bit in the zone in the second half, moving the ball and trying to get it to the middle," Brown said. "Ale (Lever) did a good job of being strong in there. The bigs were diving to make those guys work on the back side. We just tried to sink in, knock some shots down and make ourselves available. We moved the ball well. We played well off each other so that opened some stuff up for us."

For the fifth game in a row, GCU outrebounded its opponent (32-26) but that was misleading because 21 of the Lopes' possessions ended in turnovers. That helped give 25 fastbreak points to the Vaqueros, who had been 6-3 at home even after losing to New Mexico State by only five points on Saturday.

GCU led for the final 33 minutes and 40 seconds at UTRGV but only held a 38-35 lead at halftime by holding the Vaqueros to 41.2% first-half shooting. UTRGV moved within one possession repeatedly in the first 12 minutes of the second half but a key 6-0 GCU run took that proximity away for good when Lever converted a spinning post move for a 69-60 lead with 5:55 remaining.

UTRGV junior point guard Javon Levi, the nation's assist leader, played a brilliant game with 15 points, 13 assists and three steals but was out as GCU took a 69-60 lead. The Lopes closed out the victory by making their final four shots of the game, including two Brown 3-pointers.

"I hope that does a lot for him and us," Majerle said of Brown. "We need somebody to be able to step. Isiah has been a scorer his whole career. He's struggled this year and a lot of it is because he's ball-dominant. A lot of his 3s tonight were off a couple extra swings. Those were all good shots. When we play like that, a lot of guys are going to have better nights. That was huge for Isiah, especially with Mikey and Carlos getting into foul trouble."

GCU has won four of its past five games heading into Saturday night's tilt at WAC leader New Mexico State, which stayed undefeated in conference play Thursday with its 10th consecutive victory. The injury-riddled Aggies (16-6) have been tested down the stretch in four of their past five games.

"We all know what's going to happen Saturday," Majerle said. "They're going to be fired up. We're going to be fired up."

Return to gculopes.com for Paul Coro's full game recap with comments from Dan Majerle and players.