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
Sunday, December 22
Phoenix, Ariz.
2 p.m.
Grand Canyon
vs
Saint Louis
Photo by: David Kadlubowski
GCU, Saint Louis vie for win to recapture rhythm
12/21/2024 10:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball, Paul Coro
Lopes play 2 p.m. Sunday home game against Atlantic 10 contender
Sunday, December 22 | 2 p.m. (Phoenix time) | Global Credit Union Arena | Phoenix, Ariz. |
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SAINT LOUIS
BILLIKENS (6-5) |
at | GRAND CANYON LOPES (7-4) |
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| WATCH: ESPN+ | LISTEN: 1580 The Fanatic | STATS: View | ||||
The basketball team is projected to be NCAA tournament quality, played without its star player earlier in the season, has a trio of proven scorers and comes into Sunday searching for a statement win.
That could be Grand Canyon or Saint Louis entering the 2 p.m. Sunday game between the Lopes (7-4) and Billikens (6-5) at Global Credit Union Arena.
GCU recovered from road losses to Georgia (10-1) and Louisiana Tech (10-2) with Thursday's home win against Chicago State, but Sunday's matchup with an Atlantic 10 title contender is a return to tough sledding in the desert."We're both really good teams with really good players on both teams," Lopes head coach Bryce Drew said. "Both teams are obviously searching to really catch the rhythm that we're capable of. It's a great opportunity for us to play at home against a really good program.
"They (the Billikens) definitely have the players and the coaches to catch Dayton (in the A-10). This is a really good team, and we all know all that."
After one NCAA tournament appearance in eight years under Travis Ford, Saint Louis tapped Josh Schertz as head coach after he led Indiana State to a 32-7 record and the Missouri Valley championship. He brought the Sycamores star duo of junior center Robbie Avila, a goggle-wearing cult hero nicknamed "Cream Abdul-Jabbar," and senior point guard Isaiah Swope to Saint Louis with him.
Avila missed three games after suffering an ankle sprain in the Billikens' season opener, but he returned sharp with 18.0 points and 5.6 rebounds per game and 38% 3-point shooting at 6 feet 10. With Swope averaging 18.0 points and 5.2 assists and sixth-year guard Gibson Jimerson averaging 17.5 points and also shooting 38% on 3s, Saint Louis leans on its starting lineup while having the lowest bench scoring production (10.3 points per game) in the nation.
But Saint Louis is trying to find its stride as well, coming into GCU after a loss at Illinois State (7-4) and at home to Wofford (5-7). The Billikens are 0-4 away from Saint Louis.
"Avila's injury hurt," Drew said. "He was out a lot of the preseason too. I doubt they got a great rhythm, kind of like Tyon (Grant-Foster) not being with our main group because he wasn't going to play the first two games. Basketball's such a rhythm thing, with continuity and unity on the court. For us, when we have that, I think that's when we're the team that we want to be."
The Lopes flashed that potential with a 40-20 first half Thursday night against Chicago State, when sophomore guards Caleb Shaw and Makaih Williams replaced graduate swingman Tyon Grant-Foster and senior guard Collin Moore in the starting lineup. It was the first time Grant-Foster or Moore had come off the bench for GCU, and the first time Grant-Foster had been a reserve since March 2021 with Kansas.Grant-Foster tallied 10 points, seven rebounds, two assists, two blocked shots and a steal, but his 3-point shooting drought continued (1 for 28 over the past six games).
GCU's much-improved defense will be facing one of the nation's best and most frequent 3-point shooting teams. The Billikens fire 28.5 shots from 3-point range per game, hitting a 35.4% clip for 10.1 made 3s per game (33rd nationally).
"This is one of the better offenses in the whole country," Drew said. "It's the system he (Schertz) ran last year at Indiana State, and he has some of the same players. It was beautiful to watch from a basketball perspective. They use a lot of things offensively that are fun to watch and makes for good basketball."
GCU enticed a season-best 25 opponent turnovers Thursday, matching the regular-season high for last season. The Lopes returned to creating the pace they had earlier this season with 14 steals against Chicago State, putting GCU ninth in the nation with 10.4 steals per game.Meanwhile, the Lopes are working their way back to playing cleaner offense after shooting 38% in the losses to Georgia and Louisiana Tech. The Lopes played without freshman point guard Styles Phipps on Thursday night after he injured his left hand during Monday's loss at Louisiana Tech.
"Our defense has gotten much better, so we're really pleased with our defense," Drew said. "Offensively, we need to get better at some of the fundamentals – making the right, easy pass, having your head up when you're dribbling or bringing the ball up. Just some simple things could make our offense look a lot better."
Lope tracks
- Sunday's game features two of the nine active Division I players with more than 2,000 career points – GCU senior guard Ray Harrison (2,120) and Saint Louis senior guard Gibson Jimerson (2,017).
- With three seasons at GCU, Harrison needs seven points to pass Ben Lindsey (1,235 points) for 13th place on the Lopes all-time scoring list.
- GCU has not committed more turnovers than its opponent in a game this season. It is a 17-game streak that includes the final six games of last season.
- Sunday's game is the last of a four-game, nine-day stretch for GCU.
- Only Alabama's Mark Sears has made more career free throws (633) than Harrison (561) among active Division I players.
- This is the first GCU team of the program's Division I era to make fewer than 30% of its 3-pointers in five consecutive games.
- Lopes graduate forward Lök Wur is on the first four-game streak of double-digit scoring games in his career. He is averaging 14.3 points in 18.8 minutes per game with 10-for-16 accuracy on 3s in the past four games.
- Lopes sophomore guard Caleb Shaw, who received his first GCU start on Thursday, is averaging 10.3 points on 67% shooting over the past four games after averaging 1.4 points in the previous five games.
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