Road win pours 50 on LMU in 2nd half

Monday, November 29

Los Angeles, Calif.

8 p.m. (MST)

Grand Canyon

6-1,0-0WAC

Loyola Marymount

4-3,0-0WCC

Grand Canyon

Loyola Marymount

11/29/2021 7:08:00 PM | Men's Basketball, Paul Coro

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Lopes leave L.A. with 2 wins after beating Lions

By: Paul Coro

LOS ANGELES – Playing its fourth game in eight days and going through its worst offensive stretch of the season in the first half, Grand Canyon could have gone away as gently as the ocean breeze at Loyola Marymount.

Instead, the Lopes (6-1) came out with a 50-point offensive typhoon in the second half on Monday night and defeated the Lions 78-72 at Gersten Pavilion.

GCU was predictably carried by its stalwart guards, junior Jovan Blacksher Jr. and graduate Holland Woods, who scored 20 and 24 points, respectively, with each playing more than 38 of the game's 40 minutes.

Woods sparked the second-half surge with the Lopes' first eight points after halftime, but it was GCU senior reserve forward Taeshon Cherry who lifted GCU to its best level of the season.

"It felt great to be the energy and the spark plug for the team," said Cherry, playing his first month of basketball since December. "It's tremendous to get on the road again, get on the plane again, stay in a hotel. It's amazing and I'm glad I'm here."

After having a season breakthrough with his play in a Saturday win at Pepperdine, Cherry slid from small forward to power forward for a seven-point, five-rebound, four-steal, three-assist second half. Cherry finished with a game line of 12 points, six steals, five rebounds and four assists in 23 minutes.

"I was so proud of Taeshon," GCU head coach Bryce Drew said. "He played his best game that he's played at GCU and I would event debate maybe his best game in his last three years of college. He didn't just score it. He had six steals. He was so good on defense. Five rebounds. He played with a lot of energy and made good passes. It was just a really solid performances from Taeshon."

LMU's physical play unsettled GCU in the first half, but the Lopes gave more hits than they took in the second half. Woods connected on his third 3-pointer of the second half for GCU to take its first lead, 48-46, since 12-10.

It turned into a battle from there, but Cherry created some space for the Lopes when he strung together huge moments with a fadeaway follow, a post-up, a steal and two free throws to put the Lopes ahead 61-54 with 5:17 to play against a Lions team predicted to finish in the West Coast Conference's top three.

"That's literally all it was, Taeshon Cherry," Woods said. "He's the MVP. Tae gave us big minutes. Without Tae, I don't know if we win that game. He just came in and he brings that energy every single day."

The Lions never pulled back within a possession from there with Cherry finding Blacksher for a fastbreak score and Blacksher getting another driving score off graduate forward Sean Miller-Moore's offensive rebounds, one of his team-high eight rebounds and the Lopes' 13 offensive boards. GCU has posted double-digit offensive rebounds in each game this season and capitalized on it Monday night, outscoring LMU 17-2 on second-chance points. The Lopes also held a 23-8 edge for points off turnovers with the Lions committing 17 turnovers.

Twice down the stretch, GCU kept LMU at bay with Miller-Moore getting ahead of the Lions for a fastbreak alleyoop finish and a breakaway layup.

"This was an intense game," Drew said. "Over there, it felt like a late-season conference game with how physical it was and the intensity. Our guys were challenged. We were down. It just shows a great resiliency. It shows a lot of fight in them that they could come and respond over those last 25 minutes."

The Lopes outscored the Lions 60-43 over the final 24 minutes, when they only made three turnovers after having seven in the game's first 16 minutes to trail by 11.

After heavy player rotations in the first half, Blacksher, Miller-Moore and Woods played the entire second half.

"They punched us in the mouth a little bit there," Woods said of trailing 29-18 after the first 16 minutes. "We knew we were one of the best conditioned teams in the country I think. We just knew if we continued to keep fighting and fighting then they'd break down."

GCU knew it would be in an energy-and-aggression matchup with LMU on Monday night and emerged from the locker room with the requisite energy to compete. The Lopes attacked the lane and rim on the first two possessions for scores and hit their only two 3-pointers of the first half successively for a 10-5 lead.

Drew shuffled in 11 players in the game's first seven minutes and eventually used 12 Lopes in the first half when sophomore guard Liam Lloyd made a rare rotation appearance for a significant impact.

But GCU's otherwise cold perimeter shooting sent the offense into a funk after that 10-5 lead. The Lopes went through an eight-minute stretch in which they missed 10 consecutive shots while also making four turnovers against their most physical opponent of the season. Meanwhile, LMU was scoring easily, whether it be using the turnovers for transition scores or getting into the paint with post-ups, drives and backdoor cuts.

LMU took a 29-18 lead before GCU found traction by getting back to the rim. The Lopes scored 10 points in the first half's final four minutes with junior guard Jovan Blacksher Jr. and junior power forward Gabe McGlothan each scoring twice by going into attack mode. The Lions led 33-28 at halftime with GCU surviving by scoring seven second-chance points and not allowing one.

"Loyola Marymount is really good," Drew said. "They are physical on defense, they rotate, they make you make extra passes. For the first 15 minutes, we didn't handle it well. The physicality gave us a lot of issues. We felt like we could've been down a lot more so we were really thankful going into the locker room. Second half, our guys just really responded. I think that was our best consecutive 20 minutes of a game this season in that second half."

After never having a win against a West Coast Conference program, GCU picked up a pair on the road in three days. The Lopes did so with 200 Havocs and more alumni and fans who joined those students in Malibu and Los Angeles.

"Spending some time with the guys on the road was good quality time that's going to help us," Drew said. "We got to thank President Mueller, Helen Bleach, Jamie Boggs, they just do an unbelievable job to get our students and the Havocs coming. As our coach, our program and our players, we can't say thank you enough for them showing the support and coming out because you do play better when you have your home crowd there. We felt like we had our home crowd with us."

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