Chance to tighten race slips away at Dixie

Saturday, February 12

St. George, Utah

7 p.m.

Grand Canyon

17-6,7-4WAC

Dixie State

12-13,5-7WAC

Grand Canyon

Dixie St.

2/12/2022 9:00:00 PM | Men's Basketball, Paul Coro

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Lopes fight offensive struggles to the buzzer of 61-60 road loss

By: Paul Coro

ST. GEORGE, Utah – Grand Canyon was given a chance to tighten the WAC race on Saturday night but the Lopes could not cinch the vise.

GCU could have become one of four teams within a game at the top of the WAC race but its offense allowed Dixie State to hang and pull out a 61-60 upset at Burns Arena.

The Lopes (17-6, 8-4 WAC) shot 32.9% from the field to waste another stellar defensive effort. GCU did not hold a lead over the final nine minutes until sophomore Jovan Blacksher Jr. made a go-ahead jumper with 40 seconds remaining.

Trailing 60-58, Dixie State (12-13, 5-7 WAC) went to its leading scorer, fifth-year senior power forward Hunter Schofield, in the post. Lopes sophomore power forward Gabe McGlothan fouled Schofield as he finished and the and-one free throw put Dixie State ahead 61-60 with 17.6 seconds remaining.

After Trailblazers head coach Jon Judkins called time out, the Lopes put the ball in Blacksher's hands to go the length of the floor. He was blitzed by a sideline trap, forcing him to pass back toward midcourt to graduate guard Holland Woods II. With only six seconds to operate, Woods created a stepback 3-point that missed at the buzzer.

Three conference teams now stand within a game of each other as the Lopes fell out of pace with New Mexico State (10-2 WAC), Seattle U (10-2 WAC) and Sam Houston (10-3 WAC) with six games remaining. GCU slips into a tie for fourth place with Stephen F. Austin (8-4 WAC), which holds the tiebreaker by winning the teams' only head-to-head win of the season.

"Lot of missed layups, lot of missed wide-open shots," Lopes head coach Bryce Drew said of his team's 32.9% shooting game. "A lot of guys not as focused on the defensive end, making some mistakes that, within our core values of defense, they shouldn't make. A game of mistakes for us, we just made too many."

Blacksher and Woods, GCU's season-long leading scorers, went a combined 6 for 30 from the field, although Blacksher dealt seven assists, one off his season high despite only playing 30 minutes after first-half foul trouble.

It was frontcourt players Yvan Ouedraogo (10 points and 10 rebounds, McGlothan (11 points with 3-of-6 3-point shooting) and reserve Taeshon Cherry (10 points in 19 minutes) who accounted for most of GCU's points. It was Ouedraogo's sixth double-double of his career.

"Underneath, it didn't feel really good the whole game," Drew said. "We prepped as well as we could've the last two days. We tried to save their legs. We just didn't have it tonight. This is a lesson for us to learn.

"We have not played two good games in the same week on the road in conference play. It was a grind all game. There was maybe a three-minute stretch out of 40 that we looked like us, like a team that we have been all season. For 37, we didn't look or play like ourselves out there."

GCU's defense again had to bail out the team for its early offensive struggles. Much like when it scored 19 points in the first 17 minutes on Thursday night at Utah Valley, the Lopes struggled to capitalize on quality opportunities that could have pulled them away early.

Dixie State was shooting 24% from the field before it hit four consecutive shots late in the half by getting to the rim. That put the Trailbazers back within striking distance with GCU leading 25-23 at halftime.

The Lopes survived the first half because of the post work of sophomore power forward Yvan Ouedraogo, who made five of six shots for 10 points while his teammates went 5 for 27 from the field in the first half. GCU did not score on successive possessions for the entire first half, which included eight Lopes turnovers.

"I don't know if we can get better looks than some of our guys had tonight, to be honest," Drew said. "We blew at least eight to 10 layups at the rim, including about five to seven in the first half. Sometimes, you just have nights when it doesn't go in. As a coach, you try to motivate. You encourage. You get on them. We did all of the above to try to get them into a rhythm to play and, unfortunately, the rhythm was too late."

The second half started with hope that GCU would start converting those chances, but the Lopes immediately were hit with peril when Blacksher foul trouble continued by picking up his third foul. Blacksher navigated that to play nearly the rest of the game, but Dixie State carried enough confidence to build a 52-46 lead with 5:25 remaining.

GCU continued to have difficulty stringing scores together in the second half, doing it once until the final five minutes, when Cherry made a 3-pointer and finished a fastbreak off a Sean Miller-Moore steal to start a 10-point run in two minutes. Cherry finished that run with another 3, tying the game at 56-56 with less than three minutes to play.

Dixie State, coming off a close Thursday loss to New Mexico State, was able to close out the game to give the Trailblazers a win that is considered to be the best of their two-year Division I era. Dixie State 17th-year head coach Jon Judkins extended his record as the winningest college basketball coach in Utah history with his 589th victory.

The Lopes will head back to the road for a Wednesday night game at California Baptist before returning to GCU Arena next Saturday against New Mexico State.

"Hopefully, this is a learning point," Drew said. "We've got a lot of guys in that locker room that are learning about a winning culture, learning to try to establish a championship culture. Last year, Asbjorn Midtgaard came in from a winning culture and he really helped in that locker room. This is a great learning point for some of our younger guys to embrace a winning culture because this is a game that we should've played much better than we did tonight."