Completed Event: Men's Basketball at Baylor on October 10, 2025 , Loss , 74, to, 79
M Basketball
at Baylor
L 74-79
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Grand Canyon University Athletics
Coro: WAC title ride worth reliving
4/8/2021 9:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball, Paul Coro
Lopes' tourney title, Big Dance offered special moments
Exactly a year after the decisive day that Bryce Drew was hired as the 14th head coach of the Grand Canyon men's basketball program, an unimaginable scene played out in his boyhood state of Indiana.
It was unfathomable not just because his GCU basketball team was walking outside together in Indianapolis for the first time since arriving three days earlier, complying with the restrictions of a quarantined environment that the world only had begun to see unfold on his hiring day.
It was more remarkable that the Lopes were gathering for a team picture atop a parking garage with the backdrop of a high-rise hotel's 40,000-square foot NCAA tournament bracket, which bore the "Grand Canyon" name as one of The Big Dance's 64 participants.
The Lopes' stunning turnaround from a losing 2019-20 season to their first NCAA tournament bid in the program's third Division I chance was much like their transportation escapades to get to their postseason points.
The GCU team bus broke down along the desert of Highway 93, stranding the team for two hours when it was en route to the WAC Tournament in Las Vegas. Four days later, Lopes senior star Alessandro Lever buckled up the program's first WAC Tournament championship trophy in the seat next to him for the team's charter flight to Indianapolis, where a police escort greeted them and shut down freeway entrances in guiding their buses to a swank downtown hotel.
"We made history," Lever said aloud, over and over, in Indianapolis.
The native of Bolzano, Italy, was trying to grasp the hoopla and achievement of punching a ticket to The Big Dance, a grand stage for the program and the University. History was written by the victors.
WAC becomes Lopes Vegas
The Lopes did not earn a share of their first WAC regular-season title and the WAC Tournament championship in March. Those awards were reaped from July.
Amid the strangest of circumstances, the Lopes met a masked stranger and began working harder and praying more. From the first practice when Asbjørn Midtgaard laid out his 7-foot, 270-pound body on the hardwood for a loose ball, the players bought into a new system and culture. Often wearing shirts that read "J.O.Y." (Jesus. Others. Yourself.), each day's practice ended with a prayer and a midcourt huddle that broke on "1-2-3 family."
By the time GCU reached Las Vegas in need of two wins for an NCAA tournament berth, the program already was at new heights as the conference tournament's No. 1 seed.
The start of its semifinal was ominous. Seattle U took an 8-0 lead … until GCU strategic advisor Jerry Colangelo walked into Orleans Arena.
"You're never allowed to be late again," Drew later joked to Colangelo.
GCU steamrolled Seattle U for the rest of the half, outscoring the Redhawks 49-19 to the thrill of the best-used 125-fan allotment of any WAC team – GCU students.
The next morning, Drew awoke to a championship-day text message that reminded him of the date.
"Holy cow," he said aloud as he saw March 13 on his phone.
Twenty-three years earlier, Drew became entrenched in March Madness lore when he made "The Shot," a buzzer-beating jumper that knocked off 10th-ranked Mississippi for Valparaiso, coached by his College Basketball Hall of Fame father, Homer.
Drew did not need that kind of magic moment to make more history. His GCU team dethroned New Mexico State, winner of seven of the previous eight WAC Tournaments, with more of its best basketball of the season. The Lopes went from losing the previous two championship games to the Aggies by a combined 44 points to emphatically knocking them out, 74-56.
The Lopes were going to The Big Dance but could not wait to dance as they took hold of a camera and shimmied on the court. WAC Commissioner Jeff Hurd delivered the game ball to GCU President Brian Mueller, who later tossed it to the Havocs from the court level after Drew insisted that Mueller join the team celebration on the floor.
"These athletes are such a reflection of the coaching staff," Mueller said. "They're selfless. They love the school and each other. They play for each other."
As GCU finished its postgame prayer circle and cut nets for the second time in eight nights, WAC Tournament public address announcer Rich Linden recognized the moment for a Christian university by playing "Grace Wins."
Some students and players sang along.
Now I'm rising up in victory,
Singing Hallelujah,
Grace wins every time!
Party's just getting started
The on-court celebration continued with Drew putting the GCU logo on a "Tickets Punched" sign, Lopes sophomore point guard Jovan Blacksher Jr. hoisting the WAC Tournament MVP award and Midtgaard hugging the championship trophy so tightly that his fiancée might have been jealous.
Embedded player/postgame videographer Rashad Smith asked, "Where's the main man?" until he found Drew on the court. "Hey, Coach, how you feeling being a champion?"
Drew signaled "Lopes Up," the gesture he learned a year earlier in a Nashville studio, where his GCU introduction occurred in lieu of the usual press conference.
Once he entered the postgame locker room, Drew ducked his head. He had an idea of what was coming after getting doused with water bottles for a January sweep of New Mexico State and having water coolers dumped on him for winning the WAC co-championship a week earlier. Players Dima Zdor and Ethan Spry drenched him with two coolers of ice water, setting off a dance party that featured assistant coach Jamall Walker smoothly stepping into the middle, to the players' delight.
After Colangelo initiated The Lord's Prayer, which the team says after every game, Drew joined his staff in the coaches' locker room and shouted "Redemption U" for all the in-house stories of personal growth.
The Havocs still were yelling in the arena bowl as Blacksher passed them on his way to a postgame Zoom press conference.
"Those are some funny dudes," said Blacksher, wearing a "WAC Champions" shirt and hat.
Drew was headed to his postgame radio interview when he stopped in the tunnel to circle back for his phone. He called his wife, Tara, who was restricted to the stands but spiritful in a purple blazer.
"Praise the Lord," he greeted her.
For his postgame radio interview, Drew leaned on the same bannister where he had been the previous night after a semifinal win, unable to enjoy the victory with the distraction of New Mexico State warming up over his shoulder. This time, Drew carried an easy smile and a championship net as he leaned on the game ball.
"We wanted to have success for our school," Drew said. "The Havocs and what they do for us. What the president does for us and Jerry Colangelo. What they've invested into this school with time and passion, for them to be able to see that dream come to fruition and be part of that is a special feeling. When you work for really good people, you want to do well for them."
As arena workers broke down the setting, Drew paced the floor while talking to his brother, Scott, and his father, Homer, on a FaceTime call that is a late night regular for three coaches (Scott, for No. 1 seed Baylor, and Homer, a retired Hall of Famer).
"There was the most joyous smile on his face," Homer Drew said. "It was wonderful to see for a mother and father."
More to come in postseason
In the wee hours, the GCU coaches remained in the bowels of Orleans Arena, talking and laughing around a meeting room table, often stopping to say, "This is unbelievable," and lamenting that they would not be able to be part of the on-campus Selection Show celebration.
A morning charter flight, arranged by the NCAA, awaited the 33-person entourage of players, coaches and staff. After a long night of calls with loved ones and social media posts, the 3½-hour flight to Indianapolis was a timely reboot off the grid.
Upon landing, the Lopes boarded three socially distanced busloads and were guided by police escort to the tournament's downtown hub of hotels, where the prevalent NCAA tournament branding recharged the team's energy.
GCU headed directly to a conference room for the March Madness Selection Show, where they appeared on a live CBS feed when their bracket matchup with Iowa was announced. GCU Director of Sports Medicine Geordie Hackett, who has been the team's athletic trainer for 16 years, put his arms up and Drew rubbed his hands as CBS host Greg Gumbel said, "From the Western Athletic Conference …"
Protocols dominated the experience. The team was in isolation for 36 hours until each player passed two COVID-19 tests. Meals were delivered to each room on the J.W. Marriott's 11th floor, which belonged only to Lopes personnel with GCU branding on the walls.
The time was put to use by the coaches, who showed their vast experience with the way they systematically proceeded toward a game plan for Iowa via video, statistics and contacts.
GCU's first practice in Indianapolis came a night later. The Lopes were escorted via skybridge to the convention center, where each team had a dedicated court. During practices, players and staffers wore trackers the size of Tic Tac boxes to ensure that no person was 6 feet within another for more than 15 minutes.
Once teams passed out of quarantine, familiar players and coaches crossed paths like a basketball convention with 68 teams gathered. Coaching legends Tom Izzo of Michigan State and Rick Pitino of Iona roamed the lobby of the GCU hotel, which housed about 10 other teams.
The Lopes were given a team room that was significantly smaller than Iowa's in the same hotel – players joked about needing a higher seed next year. GCU spent its second Indianapolis night playing Mafia, a group whodunit game that Blacksher found to be even more fun than the game console he brought.
When the players gathered the following night for the team photo in front of the world's largest bracket, only two of them (Lever and Oscar Frayer) had played in the WAC Tournament before the one the Lopes had just won four days earlier.
Throughout the season, Drew counted on a starting swingman who had spent a year away from the program (Frayer), a starting center who barely played in his three years at Wichita State (Midtgaard) and bench players who were not playing at GCU last season.
"The growth our players have made from the summer to now in more ways than basketball is truly remarkable," Drew said. "I haven't seen anything like it. Such a blessing to be at a school of Christian faith like GCU. God definitely had His hand on our program this year."
This article is reprinted from the April issue of GCU Magazine.
It was unfathomable not just because his GCU basketball team was walking outside together in Indianapolis for the first time since arriving three days earlier, complying with the restrictions of a quarantined environment that the world only had begun to see unfold on his hiring day.
It was more remarkable that the Lopes were gathering for a team picture atop a parking garage with the backdrop of a high-rise hotel's 40,000-square foot NCAA tournament bracket, which bore the "Grand Canyon" name as one of The Big Dance's 64 participants.The Lopes' stunning turnaround from a losing 2019-20 season to their first NCAA tournament bid in the program's third Division I chance was much like their transportation escapades to get to their postseason points.
The GCU team bus broke down along the desert of Highway 93, stranding the team for two hours when it was en route to the WAC Tournament in Las Vegas. Four days later, Lopes senior star Alessandro Lever buckled up the program's first WAC Tournament championship trophy in the seat next to him for the team's charter flight to Indianapolis, where a police escort greeted them and shut down freeway entrances in guiding their buses to a swank downtown hotel.
"We made history," Lever said aloud, over and over, in Indianapolis.
The native of Bolzano, Italy, was trying to grasp the hoopla and achievement of punching a ticket to The Big Dance, a grand stage for the program and the University. History was written by the victors.
WAC becomes Lopes Vegas
The Lopes did not earn a share of their first WAC regular-season title and the WAC Tournament championship in March. Those awards were reaped from July.
Amid the strangest of circumstances, the Lopes met a masked stranger and began working harder and praying more. From the first practice when Asbjørn Midtgaard laid out his 7-foot, 270-pound body on the hardwood for a loose ball, the players bought into a new system and culture. Often wearing shirts that read "J.O.Y." (Jesus. Others. Yourself.), each day's practice ended with a prayer and a midcourt huddle that broke on "1-2-3 family."By the time GCU reached Las Vegas in need of two wins for an NCAA tournament berth, the program already was at new heights as the conference tournament's No. 1 seed.
The start of its semifinal was ominous. Seattle U took an 8-0 lead … until GCU strategic advisor Jerry Colangelo walked into Orleans Arena.
"You're never allowed to be late again," Drew later joked to Colangelo.
GCU steamrolled Seattle U for the rest of the half, outscoring the Redhawks 49-19 to the thrill of the best-used 125-fan allotment of any WAC team – GCU students.
The next morning, Drew awoke to a championship-day text message that reminded him of the date.
"Holy cow," he said aloud as he saw March 13 on his phone.
Twenty-three years earlier, Drew became entrenched in March Madness lore when he made "The Shot," a buzzer-beating jumper that knocked off 10th-ranked Mississippi for Valparaiso, coached by his College Basketball Hall of Fame father, Homer.
Drew did not need that kind of magic moment to make more history. His GCU team dethroned New Mexico State, winner of seven of the previous eight WAC Tournaments, with more of its best basketball of the season. The Lopes went from losing the previous two championship games to the Aggies by a combined 44 points to emphatically knocking them out, 74-56.The Lopes were going to The Big Dance but could not wait to dance as they took hold of a camera and shimmied on the court. WAC Commissioner Jeff Hurd delivered the game ball to GCU President Brian Mueller, who later tossed it to the Havocs from the court level after Drew insisted that Mueller join the team celebration on the floor.
"These athletes are such a reflection of the coaching staff," Mueller said. "They're selfless. They love the school and each other. They play for each other."
As GCU finished its postgame prayer circle and cut nets for the second time in eight nights, WAC Tournament public address announcer Rich Linden recognized the moment for a Christian university by playing "Grace Wins."
Some students and players sang along.
Now I'm rising up in victory,
Singing Hallelujah,
Grace wins every time!
Party's just getting started
The on-court celebration continued with Drew putting the GCU logo on a "Tickets Punched" sign, Lopes sophomore point guard Jovan Blacksher Jr. hoisting the WAC Tournament MVP award and Midtgaard hugging the championship trophy so tightly that his fiancée might have been jealous.
Embedded player/postgame videographer Rashad Smith asked, "Where's the main man?" until he found Drew on the court. "Hey, Coach, how you feeling being a champion?"Drew signaled "Lopes Up," the gesture he learned a year earlier in a Nashville studio, where his GCU introduction occurred in lieu of the usual press conference.
Once he entered the postgame locker room, Drew ducked his head. He had an idea of what was coming after getting doused with water bottles for a January sweep of New Mexico State and having water coolers dumped on him for winning the WAC co-championship a week earlier. Players Dima Zdor and Ethan Spry drenched him with two coolers of ice water, setting off a dance party that featured assistant coach Jamall Walker smoothly stepping into the middle, to the players' delight.
After Colangelo initiated The Lord's Prayer, which the team says after every game, Drew joined his staff in the coaches' locker room and shouted "Redemption U" for all the in-house stories of personal growth.
The Havocs still were yelling in the arena bowl as Blacksher passed them on his way to a postgame Zoom press conference.
"Those are some funny dudes," said Blacksher, wearing a "WAC Champions" shirt and hat.
Drew was headed to his postgame radio interview when he stopped in the tunnel to circle back for his phone. He called his wife, Tara, who was restricted to the stands but spiritful in a purple blazer.
"Praise the Lord," he greeted her.
For his postgame radio interview, Drew leaned on the same bannister where he had been the previous night after a semifinal win, unable to enjoy the victory with the distraction of New Mexico State warming up over his shoulder. This time, Drew carried an easy smile and a championship net as he leaned on the game ball.
"We wanted to have success for our school," Drew said. "The Havocs and what they do for us. What the president does for us and Jerry Colangelo. What they've invested into this school with time and passion, for them to be able to see that dream come to fruition and be part of that is a special feeling. When you work for really good people, you want to do well for them."
As arena workers broke down the setting, Drew paced the floor while talking to his brother, Scott, and his father, Homer, on a FaceTime call that is a late night regular for three coaches (Scott, for No. 1 seed Baylor, and Homer, a retired Hall of Famer).
"There was the most joyous smile on his face," Homer Drew said. "It was wonderful to see for a mother and father."
More to come in postseason
In the wee hours, the GCU coaches remained in the bowels of Orleans Arena, talking and laughing around a meeting room table, often stopping to say, "This is unbelievable," and lamenting that they would not be able to be part of the on-campus Selection Show celebration.
A morning charter flight, arranged by the NCAA, awaited the 33-person entourage of players, coaches and staff. After a long night of calls with loved ones and social media posts, the 3½-hour flight to Indianapolis was a timely reboot off the grid.
Upon landing, the Lopes boarded three socially distanced busloads and were guided by police escort to the tournament's downtown hub of hotels, where the prevalent NCAA tournament branding recharged the team's energy.
GCU headed directly to a conference room for the March Madness Selection Show, where they appeared on a live CBS feed when their bracket matchup with Iowa was announced. GCU Director of Sports Medicine Geordie Hackett, who has been the team's athletic trainer for 16 years, put his arms up and Drew rubbed his hands as CBS host Greg Gumbel said, "From the Western Athletic Conference …"
Protocols dominated the experience. The team was in isolation for 36 hours until each player passed two COVID-19 tests. Meals were delivered to each room on the J.W. Marriott's 11th floor, which belonged only to Lopes personnel with GCU branding on the walls.
The time was put to use by the coaches, who showed their vast experience with the way they systematically proceeded toward a game plan for Iowa via video, statistics and contacts.
GCU's first practice in Indianapolis came a night later. The Lopes were escorted via skybridge to the convention center, where each team had a dedicated court. During practices, players and staffers wore trackers the size of Tic Tac boxes to ensure that no person was 6 feet within another for more than 15 minutes.
Once teams passed out of quarantine, familiar players and coaches crossed paths like a basketball convention with 68 teams gathered. Coaching legends Tom Izzo of Michigan State and Rick Pitino of Iona roamed the lobby of the GCU hotel, which housed about 10 other teams.
The Lopes were given a team room that was significantly smaller than Iowa's in the same hotel – players joked about needing a higher seed next year. GCU spent its second Indianapolis night playing Mafia, a group whodunit game that Blacksher found to be even more fun than the game console he brought.When the players gathered the following night for the team photo in front of the world's largest bracket, only two of them (Lever and Oscar Frayer) had played in the WAC Tournament before the one the Lopes had just won four days earlier.
Throughout the season, Drew counted on a starting swingman who had spent a year away from the program (Frayer), a starting center who barely played in his three years at Wichita State (Midtgaard) and bench players who were not playing at GCU last season.
"The growth our players have made from the summer to now in more ways than basketball is truly remarkable," Drew said. "I haven't seen anything like it. Such a blessing to be at a school of Christian faith like GCU. God definitely had His hand on our program this year."
This article is reprinted from the April issue of GCU Magazine.
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