Upcoming Event: Men's Basketball at Baylor on October 10, 2025 at 2 p.m. (MST)
M Basketball
2 p.m. (MST)
at Baylor
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Grand Canyon University Athletics
Saturday, March 11
Las Vegas, Nev.
9:30 p.m. MT / 8:30 p.m. PT
Grand Canyon
24-11,10-7WAC
84
vs
66
Southern Utah
22-12,12-6WAC
1
2
F
Grand Canyon
44
40
84
Southern Utah
31
35
66
Dancin' again: Lopes roll to WAC Tournament title
3/12/2023 1:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball, Paul Coro
GCU punches Big Dance tickets by toppling Southern Utah for 4th win in 5 days
LAS VEGAS – On Feb. 28, the Grand Canyon players crunched into a hotel meeting room in Cedar City, Utah, without the coaches to envision where they could be 12 nights later.
That visionary place was Lake Lopes, a water-doused Orleans Arena locker room where the players showered their head coach, Bryce Drew, in Saturday night's final hour and broke into a Big Dance. For their sixth consecutive win since that Cedar City meeting, GCU dominated Southern Utah in the WAC Tournament championship game with an 84-66 victory that punched the Lopes' second NCAA tournament ticket in three seasons.
GCU (24-11) won the 2021 WAC Tournament in its third try as a Division I-eligible team and turned mad again this March with a scorching-hot offense and a resolute attitude that rolled like dice through Las Vegas for four wins in five days. The Lopes shot at least 50% from the field during each game of a six-win streak — all away from Phoenix.
They reset the program's WAC Tournament shooting record each game with a rotation of headliners who saved the legs of tournament Most Outstanding Player Ray Harrison for his 31-point, eight-rebound, eight-assist crowning jewel on championship night.
Th
e Lopes' season was bookended by being preseason favorites and postseason champions, but the story took fortitude and foresight to navigate past losing WAC Preseason Player of the Year Jovan Blacksher Jr. to a season-ending knee injury in January. GCU head coach Bryce Drew pulled a WAC Tournament champion out of his magic hat.
"It's a God story," Drew said. "We've had so much adversity this year. We have battled a lot. Guys have been faithful. Guys have been resilient. Guys have worked hard. We had meetings. We had heart-to-hearts. We had hard practices and the character never dropped in these guys. These last two weeks have been a total joy to be with these guys. They have believed every single second of every day.
"These last few weeks, we have taken a huge step from just being teammates to being a family."
GCU will learn its NCAA tournament fate Sunday when it gathers with all fans welcome to watch the NCAA Championship Selection Show at 3 p.m. (Phoenix time) in GCU Arena. Even without winning there since Feb. 17, the Lopes were hoisting a trophy at center court Saturday night amid a purple rain of confetti.
It was exactly what Harrison envisioned when he saw the talent around him for the first time last June in GCU Basketball Practice Facility after going 19-35 at Presbyterian without a postseason victory. But the Lopes needed Harrison to win just as much, and Harrison was built for the moment Saturday night.
With his drives, pull-ups, late shot-clock creativity and 3s as Southern Utah went under screens, Harrison broke DeWayne Russell's GCU Division I-era single-season points record during a 20-point first half that helped GCU build a 44-31 lead. That lead never got smaller than 12 in the second half.
"All the adversity we had to face and all the ups and downs, I don't know what to say ... I'm just thankful," said Harrison, who went 5 for 7 on 3-pointers after not making a 3 in the previous two games. "All the work that we put in, all of us pushing each other, all the talent we've got, we put it together and here we are."
After Harrison posted 29- and 25-point games at Southern Utah and Utah Tech, Drew was asked whether that level of play was sustainable for Harrison when GCU would need to win four games in five days at the WAC Tournament.
"Kemba Walker did it," Drew said at the time, referring to the former UConn star's legendary five-game run for the 2011 Big East champions.
Harrison's four-game tournament of 80 points, 21 rebounds and 23 assists is not Lopes lore because it made the 6-foot-4 guard the first Division I player to have 80 points, 20 rebounds and 20 assists in a conference tournament since ... Walker in 2011.
That pivotal two-hour meeting before the streak's first win against Southern Utah on March 1 was called by junior center Yvan Ouedraogo, the same player who dug into teammates at halftime of Opening Night to rally from 19 down against Montana State. By the next day, the mood of the team altered with Drew and junior Gabe McGlothan having a snowball fight after the team shootaround and the team rallying from 19 down to beat the Thunderbirds that night.
"We really came together, not as teammates but as brothers," Harrison said. "We genuinely opened up and let each other know how we were feeling about the situation we were in and how things were going. We did what we had to do to get things on track."
Southern Utah (22-12) emerged for a championship game-caliber battle with its star, Chandler native Tevian Jones. He scored 12 points as the Thunderbirds took an 18-14 lead in a building that was predominantly purple but made even louder by a large influx of red, much of which came 2 1/2 hours from Cedar City.
But as brilliant as GCU's offense was with 13-for-20 3-point shooting following its 16-for-30 accuracy on 3s in the semifinal, the Lopes defense held the nation's No. 5 offense 17 points below its average. Rotating defenders such as redshirt freshman forward Kobe Knox and graduate guard Walter Ellis slowed Jones, who was held to five points after those first eight minutes. Thunderbirds senior Maizen Fausett was defended more physically and not allowed second chances with Ouedraogo grabbing 13 boards.. After a 31-point game on March 1, Fausett scored 12 on Saturday.
The game broke open with an 11-0 run capped by a 3-pointer by graduate forward Noah Baumann off sophomore guard Chance McMillian's assist. A couple minutes later, the Lopes kept coming with a 9-0 run capped by another Baumann bomb, this one coming 5 feet beyond the left wing of the arc. Following his 17-point semifinal, the Phoenix Desert Vista High School graduate gave GCU a second 5-for-7 shooter from 3-point range to score 16 off the bench.
McGlothan, the team's only 2021 tournament player besides McMillian, added 21 points on 9-of-12 accuracy, sinking his first seven second-half shots just two days after his 35-point quarterfinal performance on 13-of-20 shooting. He and Harrison were named to the All-WAC Tournament Team.
The Chandler Basha High School graduate is playing the best basketball of his career, shooting 61% from the field in the past 10 games for an 18-point scoring average. But even as he started that stretch, GCU was going through a 2-3 rough patch on top of the in-season travails of Blacksher's injury and losing Ouedraogo for nearly six weeks to a hand fracture.
The GCU team that lost seven games by five points or fewer this season won its first three WAC Tournament games by five points or fewer before handing Southern Utah its second most-lopsided loss of the season.
"Talking about really trying to dig deep to get this one, I'm just proud of this whole team," McGlothan said. "We fought like crazy. To stand at the top of the tournament and go dance again means a lot."
GCU is now 16-0 when scoring at least 78 points and 16-0 when shooting at least 48% from the field with a 13-1 mark when the Lopes make at least 10 shots from 3-pointe range. An ESPN2 audience got to see GCU at its best so far, leading by double digits from the time Harrison hit consecutive 3s with less than 3 minutes to go in the first half.
Becoming the first No. 5 seed to win the WAC Tournament since Hawaii in 2001 also made this the winningest Lopes season since the 2015-16 team went 27-7.
"As we keep going and keep playing, I feel like we'll be able to reach that peak, but as of right now, I can't even tell you how good this team is," Harrison said. "Everybody surprises me. Last night (in the semifinal) when I was in foul trouble, to see everybody step up, to see Noah hit that big shot, to see Kobe go 6 for 6 (on 3-pointers), that's exactly why I came here."
That visionary place was Lake Lopes, a water-doused Orleans Arena locker room where the players showered their head coach, Bryce Drew, in Saturday night's final hour and broke into a Big Dance. For their sixth consecutive win since that Cedar City meeting, GCU dominated Southern Utah in the WAC Tournament championship game with an 84-66 victory that punched the Lopes' second NCAA tournament ticket in three seasons.
GCU (24-11) won the 2021 WAC Tournament in its third try as a Division I-eligible team and turned mad again this March with a scorching-hot offense and a resolute attitude that rolled like dice through Las Vegas for four wins in five days. The Lopes shot at least 50% from the field during each game of a six-win streak — all away from Phoenix.
They reset the program's WAC Tournament shooting record each game with a rotation of headliners who saved the legs of tournament Most Outstanding Player Ray Harrison for his 31-point, eight-rebound, eight-assist crowning jewel on championship night.
Th
e Lopes' season was bookended by being preseason favorites and postseason champions, but the story took fortitude and foresight to navigate past losing WAC Preseason Player of the Year Jovan Blacksher Jr. to a season-ending knee injury in January. GCU head coach Bryce Drew pulled a WAC Tournament champion out of his magic hat."It's a God story," Drew said. "We've had so much adversity this year. We have battled a lot. Guys have been faithful. Guys have been resilient. Guys have worked hard. We had meetings. We had heart-to-hearts. We had hard practices and the character never dropped in these guys. These last two weeks have been a total joy to be with these guys. They have believed every single second of every day.
"These last few weeks, we have taken a huge step from just being teammates to being a family."
GCU will learn its NCAA tournament fate Sunday when it gathers with all fans welcome to watch the NCAA Championship Selection Show at 3 p.m. (Phoenix time) in GCU Arena. Even without winning there since Feb. 17, the Lopes were hoisting a trophy at center court Saturday night amid a purple rain of confetti.
It was exactly what Harrison envisioned when he saw the talent around him for the first time last June in GCU Basketball Practice Facility after going 19-35 at Presbyterian without a postseason victory. But the Lopes needed Harrison to win just as much, and Harrison was built for the moment Saturday night.With his drives, pull-ups, late shot-clock creativity and 3s as Southern Utah went under screens, Harrison broke DeWayne Russell's GCU Division I-era single-season points record during a 20-point first half that helped GCU build a 44-31 lead. That lead never got smaller than 12 in the second half.
"All the adversity we had to face and all the ups and downs, I don't know what to say ... I'm just thankful," said Harrison, who went 5 for 7 on 3-pointers after not making a 3 in the previous two games. "All the work that we put in, all of us pushing each other, all the talent we've got, we put it together and here we are."
After Harrison posted 29- and 25-point games at Southern Utah and Utah Tech, Drew was asked whether that level of play was sustainable for Harrison when GCU would need to win four games in five days at the WAC Tournament.
"Kemba Walker did it," Drew said at the time, referring to the former UConn star's legendary five-game run for the 2011 Big East champions.
Harrison's four-game tournament of 80 points, 21 rebounds and 23 assists is not Lopes lore because it made the 6-foot-4 guard the first Division I player to have 80 points, 20 rebounds and 20 assists in a conference tournament since ... Walker in 2011.
That pivotal two-hour meeting before the streak's first win against Southern Utah on March 1 was called by junior center Yvan Ouedraogo, the same player who dug into teammates at halftime of Opening Night to rally from 19 down against Montana State. By the next day, the mood of the team altered with Drew and junior Gabe McGlothan having a snowball fight after the team shootaround and the team rallying from 19 down to beat the Thunderbirds that night.
"We really came together, not as teammates but as brothers," Harrison said. "We genuinely opened up and let each other know how we were feeling about the situation we were in and how things were going. We did what we had to do to get things on track."
Southern Utah (22-12) emerged for a championship game-caliber battle with its star, Chandler native Tevian Jones. He scored 12 points as the Thunderbirds took an 18-14 lead in a building that was predominantly purple but made even louder by a large influx of red, much of which came 2 1/2 hours from Cedar City.
But as brilliant as GCU's offense was with 13-for-20 3-point shooting following its 16-for-30 accuracy on 3s in the semifinal, the Lopes defense held the nation's No. 5 offense 17 points below its average. Rotating defenders such as redshirt freshman forward Kobe Knox and graduate guard Walter Ellis slowed Jones, who was held to five points after those first eight minutes. Thunderbirds senior Maizen Fausett was defended more physically and not allowed second chances with Ouedraogo grabbing 13 boards.. After a 31-point game on March 1, Fausett scored 12 on Saturday.The game broke open with an 11-0 run capped by a 3-pointer by graduate forward Noah Baumann off sophomore guard Chance McMillian's assist. A couple minutes later, the Lopes kept coming with a 9-0 run capped by another Baumann bomb, this one coming 5 feet beyond the left wing of the arc. Following his 17-point semifinal, the Phoenix Desert Vista High School graduate gave GCU a second 5-for-7 shooter from 3-point range to score 16 off the bench.
McGlothan, the team's only 2021 tournament player besides McMillian, added 21 points on 9-of-12 accuracy, sinking his first seven second-half shots just two days after his 35-point quarterfinal performance on 13-of-20 shooting. He and Harrison were named to the All-WAC Tournament Team.The Chandler Basha High School graduate is playing the best basketball of his career, shooting 61% from the field in the past 10 games for an 18-point scoring average. But even as he started that stretch, GCU was going through a 2-3 rough patch on top of the in-season travails of Blacksher's injury and losing Ouedraogo for nearly six weeks to a hand fracture.
The GCU team that lost seven games by five points or fewer this season won its first three WAC Tournament games by five points or fewer before handing Southern Utah its second most-lopsided loss of the season.
"Talking about really trying to dig deep to get this one, I'm just proud of this whole team," McGlothan said. "We fought like crazy. To stand at the top of the tournament and go dance again means a lot."
GCU is now 16-0 when scoring at least 78 points and 16-0 when shooting at least 48% from the field with a 13-1 mark when the Lopes make at least 10 shots from 3-pointe range. An ESPN2 audience got to see GCU at its best so far, leading by double digits from the time Harrison hit consecutive 3s with less than 3 minutes to go in the first half.
Becoming the first No. 5 seed to win the WAC Tournament since Hawaii in 2001 also made this the winningest Lopes season since the 2015-16 team went 27-7.
"As we keep going and keep playing, I feel like we'll be able to reach that peak, but as of right now, I can't even tell you how good this team is," Harrison said. "Everybody surprises me. Last night (in the semifinal) when I was in foul trouble, to see everybody step up, to see Noah hit that big shot, to see Kobe go 6 for 6 (on 3-pointers), that's exactly why I came here."
🏆 𝐃𝐀𝐍𝐂𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐎𝐔𝐓 𝐎𝐅 𝐋𝐎𝐏𝐄 𝐕𝐄𝐆𝐀𝐒 𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐈𝐍𝐓𝐎 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐍𝐂𝐀𝐀 𝐓𝐎𝐔𝐑𝐍𝐀𝐌𝐄𝐍𝐓! 🏆
— Grand Canyon Men's Basketball (@GCU_MBB) March 12, 2023
THE LOPES ARE DANCING FOR THE SECOND TIME IN SCHOOL HISTORY. pic.twitter.com/uh0aQdG06G
How about them Lopes ? 💜💜💜💜💜💜💜
— Yvan Ouedraogo (@Yvanouedball) March 12, 2023
AHHH LOPE NATION WE LIT💜 https://t.co/VAFUY8znWL
— NoaH (@NoahBaumann20) March 12, 2023
CHAMPIONS 🙏🏽💍
— Kobe 🥀🖤 (@Kknox02) March 12, 2023
GOD WAS WITH US!!!
— Gabe McGlothan (@GabeMcGlothan5) March 12, 2023
All Glory to God!!!!💍🙏🏽🏆
I'M A CHAMP
— Walter Ellis👤 (@iamwalterellis) March 12, 2023
ALL GLORY TO GOD!!!!!!!!!!
— Rayshon Harrison (@bigtimeray0) March 12, 2023
RING MEEE 💍
— Chance McMillian (@smoove_chance3) March 12, 2023
Team Stats
GCU
SUU
FG%
.545
.349
3FG%
.650
.348
FT%
.611
.737
RB
41
30
TO
10
8
STL
5
4
Game Leaders
Scoring
Pts
31
FGM
10
3FGM
5
FTM
6
Pts
21
FGM
9
3FGM
2
FTM
1
Pts
16
FGM
5
3FGM
5
FTM
1
Pts
7
FGM
3
3FGM
1
FTM
0
Players Mentioned
F
/ Men's Basketball
G
/ Men's Basketball
G
/ Men's Basketball
G
/ Men's Basketball
F
/ Men's BasketballG
/ Men's Basketball
F
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