UVU visits GCU to decide WAC title

March 5-6 \| 7 p.m. \| GCU Arena

	UTAH VALLEY WOLVERINES (10-9, 8-3 WAC)	at	GRAND CANYON LOPES (14-5, 8-2 WAC)

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Mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the best WAC basketball team of all?

With mirror images in style and personnel, Grand Canyon and Utah Valley will decide the conference regular-season championship and the top two spots in the WAC Tournament seeding order with Friday and Saturday games at GCU Arena.

From the types of big men pairing that each team starts to the offensive and defensive systems to the head coaches' NBA pedigrees, the Lopes (14-5, 8-2 WAC) and the Wolverines (10-9, 8-3) are vying for who does many of the same things better this weekend.

"These will be two important games for us to win and show what type of team we are so we can finally win the regular-season championship," GCU senior power forward Alessandro Lever said. "They're a similar team to us so it's going to be a good matchup for us."

A sweep for either team creates an outright champion and the No. 1 tournament seed, based on a WAC formula that multiplies winning percentage by games played percentage. A split creates conference co-champions, with seeding dependent on how other weekend WAC games play out for third place. GCU and UVU secured WAC Tournament first-round byes last weekend, meaning they will start tournament play in the March 12 semifinals at Orleans Arena in Las Vegas.

"The course of how we practice, the way we've trained and hopefully the habits we've built, when you get to March, those things come out," GCU head coach Bryce Drew said. "Hopefully, those things come out in a positive way."

The most interesting parallel between the two teams is the presence of two big men for each team, including the center duel between 7-foot, 270-pound Asbjørn Midtgaard of GCU and 6-foot-11, 245-pound Fardaws Aimaq of UVU.

Midtgaard, a senior, is the national field goal percentage leader (74.5%) with 10 double-doubles. Aimaq, a sophomore, is the national rebounding leader at 15.4 per game with 14 double-doubles and a national season best of 25 rebounds against Dixie State.

"Both Grand Canyon and us start two bigs," Wolverines head coach Mark Madsen said on his ESPN 960 radio show. "It's different than the NBA. Everyone is going small ball and, here we are, both teams have two bigs. It's interesting. There are a lot of ways to skin a cat."

Each team has a stretch power forward with versatility alongside the big men. Lever, at 6-10 and 235 pounds, is averaging 13.7 points and 5.2 rebounds per game with 42% 3-point shooting. His UVU counterpart, Georgia Tech graduate transfer Evan Cole, is 6-10 and 230 and is averaging 11.4 points and 6.6 rebounds with 38% 3-point shooting.

"The bigs on both teams are really good," Drew said. "The perimeters, there are a lot of comparisons between the two. You enjoy watching them on film. Offensively, they run really good actions. They get the ball where they want to get it and they have a lot of really good pieces that fit together from the inside and the outside."

Both teams are efficient offensively without relying on 3-point shooting. GCU shoots 49.7% from the field to rank 12th nationally while UVU, with three of the WAC's top six shooters, is at 48.9% in 21st. Passing puts both teams in the national top 20 for assists (UVU in fifth, GCU in 16th).

For the Lopes, it is a chance to win their first WAC championship since joining the conference and moving to Division I in 2013. For Lever and Oscar Frayer in their fourth seasons, the opportunity puts them one winning weekend away from leaving a legacy at GCU.

"If you don't win it, that is something you'll remember for the rest of your life, saying, 'Why didn't I do this? Why did I make those decisions?' I don't plan on letting our guys slip up to lose this game," Frayer said. "We need to go out there and get these two wins, for sure."

Lope tracks

GCU ranks second in the nation for opponent field goal percentage (37.7%), trailing only Houston, and 13th for points allowed per game (62.1).
The Lopes rank fifth nationally for rebound margin at plus-10.0 per game, trailing only Utah State, North Carolina, Coastal Carolina and Illinois.
Aimaq, at 15.7 rebounds per game in conference play, has a chance to break Paul Millsap's WAC rebounding record of 15.6 per WAC game. He also could be the first college basketball player to average 15 rebounds for a season since 1979-80, when Alcorn State's Larry Smith averaged 15.1.
Midtgaard is the first Lopes player with five consecutive double-doubles since Killian Larson in 2013. They are the only Lopes to average double-digit rebounds for a season in the past 40 years.
Utah Valley won last season's two meetings, 73-69 at GCU and 92-80 at UVU, but Trey Woodbury and J.J. Overton are the only Wolverine rotation players who return.
Wolverines sophomore Tim Fuller, a 6-9 power forward who averages 2.8 points and 2.8 rebounds in 10.2 minutes per game, is returning to his home area as a graduate of Gilbert Highland High School.
Utah Valley is 6-0 in the Friday games of WAC back-to-back sets this season.

March 5-6 | 7 p.m. | GCU Arena

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Players Mentioned

Oscar Frayer

Alessandro Lever

Grand Canyon University Athletics