Completed Event: Men's Basketball versus Coastal Carolina on December 13, 2025 , Win , 82, to, 61
M Basketball
vs Coastal Carolina
W 82-61
Grand Canyon University Athletics
Saturday, January 10
Phoenix, Ariz.
6 p.m.
Grand Canyon
vs
San José State
Photo by: David Kadlubowski
Wall-to-wall defense goes hand in hand with wins
1/9/2026 4:41:00 PM | Men's Basketball, Paul Coro
GCU enters Saturday game vs. San José State with foes shooting 41% in past 9 games
When Grand Canyon defends to its elite standard, the defense becomes a wall with no doors.
Rather than being left to survive individually, they thrive as a unit in decisive stretches like the ones that recorded one of the best wins in program history Wednesday night at Boise State.
GCU has been elite defensively on the road in Mountain West play and hopes to flex that strength at home Saturday against San José State in a 6 p.m. conference game that debuts lavender jerseys.
The Lopes (9-5, 2-1 MW) may face the Spartans without Mountain West No. 2 scorer Colby Garland, who left Tuesday's loss to Fresno State after a teammate inadvertently struck his head. With Garland, San José State held second-half leads in conference losses to Utah State and San Diego State.
San José State (5-10, 0-4 MW) is on a five-game losing streak while GCU is coming off tying the second-largest margin of victory for a Boise State visitor in head coach Leon Rice's 16 seasons there.
"I really liked our activity on the ball," Drew said. "We had some really good anticipation steals off the ball. We were really connected. Guys were really helping each other out there and communicating well."
When GCU coaches implore their team to build walls, they are talking about a defense that provides good help.
That was displayed Wednesday night in Boise at the end of the first half (15-4 Lopes run) and start of the second half (10-2 run), culminating in a 25-6 GCU stretch that defined the victory.
The Lopes held the Broncos without a field goal for the final 4 1/2 minutes of the first half because freshman center Efe Demirel showed on a Boise State ball-handler when senior teammate Jaden Henley had been screened, graduate power forward Nana Owusu-Anane bodied up a Broncos driver when Demirel bit on a 3-pointer pump fake and Owusu-Anane flashed in the gap when a Boise State driver got a step on graduate teammate Brian Moore Jr.
"Hopefully, the other player is staring at three defenders and not just one defender when he has the ball," Drew said.
The GCU wall was nearly impenetrable to start the second half, when Boise State missed its first six 3-point shots over eight possessions. Even when forced to switch on screens, the Lopes scrambled and covered well. GCU opened a 47-29 lead as they pushed the Broncos to the end of the shot clock on three of the first six possessions.
Boise State cut the Lopes lead to 51-47, but a 2-3 GCU zone immediately forced two airballs before junior guard Makaih Williams made a stunning series of defensive plays. Williams blocked a breakway layup from a flat-footed leap and made consecutive hustle steals to stretch the lead. By the time graduate power forward Wilhelm Breidenbach denied an entry pass and Williams scored on a blow-by drive, the Lopes were securely ahead 68-51 on the strength of the 17-4 run.
Over the past nine games, GCU has held opponents to 41.2% shooting – closer to the 40.2% mark of Drew's first five Lopes seasons that ranked fifth nationally for that timespan.
"Defense sets the tone, and it helps your offense," said Drew, whose team had made at least 50% of its shots while allowing 37% or worse shooting in wins at Wyoming and Boise State. "Helping each other on defense is really the start of whether a team is connected or not."
Garland was averaging 20.1 points and 4.2 assists per game before leaving San José State's Tuesday loss six minutes before halftime when 6-foot-9, 230-pound teammate Marcus Overstreet inadvertently swung back into Garland's head. The Spartans did just get back redshirt freshman guard Ben Roseborough, a 40.4% 3-point shooter averaging 10 points, after missing a month and could have senior 6-foot-8, 237-pound Yaphet Moundi after he has been out since Dec. 30.
"You lose Colby and that puts a lot of stress on your office," said San José State fifth-year head coach Tim Miles, who previously coached Nebraska (2012-19) and Colorado State (2007-12).
GCU has played some of its best basketball of the season away from Global Credit Union Arena, where it had lost one game over the previous two seasons before dropping two home games this season. GCU defeated Utah in Palm Desert, California, and won its first two Mountain West games at Wyoming and Boise State. Saturday's game marks the first home game with a full-force, in-semester Havocs crowd since Dec. 2.
"Our focus and our intensity have been much better on the road than they have at home so far," Drew said. "Hopefully, that'll change. Hopefully, the energy in the building is a bonus and not something we rely on. We still have to be really connected and together, home or road."
Rather than being left to survive individually, they thrive as a unit in decisive stretches like the ones that recorded one of the best wins in program history Wednesday night at Boise State.
GCU has been elite defensively on the road in Mountain West play and hopes to flex that strength at home Saturday against San José State in a 6 p.m. conference game that debuts lavender jerseys.The Lopes (9-5, 2-1 MW) may face the Spartans without Mountain West No. 2 scorer Colby Garland, who left Tuesday's loss to Fresno State after a teammate inadvertently struck his head. With Garland, San José State held second-half leads in conference losses to Utah State and San Diego State.
San José State (5-10, 0-4 MW) is on a five-game losing streak while GCU is coming off tying the second-largest margin of victory for a Boise State visitor in head coach Leon Rice's 16 seasons there.
"I really liked our activity on the ball," Drew said. "We had some really good anticipation steals off the ball. We were really connected. Guys were really helping each other out there and communicating well."
When GCU coaches implore their team to build walls, they are talking about a defense that provides good help.
That was displayed Wednesday night in Boise at the end of the first half (15-4 Lopes run) and start of the second half (10-2 run), culminating in a 25-6 GCU stretch that defined the victory.
The Lopes held the Broncos without a field goal for the final 4 1/2 minutes of the first half because freshman center Efe Demirel showed on a Boise State ball-handler when senior teammate Jaden Henley had been screened, graduate power forward Nana Owusu-Anane bodied up a Broncos driver when Demirel bit on a 3-pointer pump fake and Owusu-Anane flashed in the gap when a Boise State driver got a step on graduate teammate Brian Moore Jr."Hopefully, the other player is staring at three defenders and not just one defender when he has the ball," Drew said.
The GCU wall was nearly impenetrable to start the second half, when Boise State missed its first six 3-point shots over eight possessions. Even when forced to switch on screens, the Lopes scrambled and covered well. GCU opened a 47-29 lead as they pushed the Broncos to the end of the shot clock on three of the first six possessions.
Boise State cut the Lopes lead to 51-47, but a 2-3 GCU zone immediately forced two airballs before junior guard Makaih Williams made a stunning series of defensive plays. Williams blocked a breakway layup from a flat-footed leap and made consecutive hustle steals to stretch the lead. By the time graduate power forward Wilhelm Breidenbach denied an entry pass and Williams scored on a blow-by drive, the Lopes were securely ahead 68-51 on the strength of the 17-4 run.
Over the past nine games, GCU has held opponents to 41.2% shooting – closer to the 40.2% mark of Drew's first five Lopes seasons that ranked fifth nationally for that timespan."Defense sets the tone, and it helps your offense," said Drew, whose team had made at least 50% of its shots while allowing 37% or worse shooting in wins at Wyoming and Boise State. "Helping each other on defense is really the start of whether a team is connected or not."
Garland was averaging 20.1 points and 4.2 assists per game before leaving San José State's Tuesday loss six minutes before halftime when 6-foot-9, 230-pound teammate Marcus Overstreet inadvertently swung back into Garland's head. The Spartans did just get back redshirt freshman guard Ben Roseborough, a 40.4% 3-point shooter averaging 10 points, after missing a month and could have senior 6-foot-8, 237-pound Yaphet Moundi after he has been out since Dec. 30.
"You lose Colby and that puts a lot of stress on your office," said San José State fifth-year head coach Tim Miles, who previously coached Nebraska (2012-19) and Colorado State (2007-12).
GCU has played some of its best basketball of the season away from Global Credit Union Arena, where it had lost one game over the previous two seasons before dropping two home games this season. GCU defeated Utah in Palm Desert, California, and won its first two Mountain West games at Wyoming and Boise State. Saturday's game marks the first home game with a full-force, in-semester Havocs crowd since Dec. 2.
"Our focus and our intensity have been much better on the road than they have at home so far," Drew said. "Hopefully, that'll change. Hopefully, the energy in the building is a bonus and not something we rely on. We still have to be really connected and together, home or road."
Lope tracks
- GCU is 7-1 when opponents make 12 or more turnovers and 2-4 when they make fewer than 12 turnovers.
- Lopes junior guard Makaih Williams is having the best five-game scoring stretch of his career. In those five games off the bench, Williams is averaging 17.0 points in 22.6 minutes per game with 37% 3-point shooting.
- Four of senior guard Jaden Henley's six career games of 20-plus points have come this season. He has scored in double digits in every game except for an eight-point outing when GCU beat Coastal Carolina.
- Graduate power forward Nana Owusu-Anane has recorded multiple steals in four consecutive games for the first time in his career.
- Owusu-Anane averages 8.9 rebounds per game to rank second in the Mountain West behind New Mexico's Tomislav Buljan. He needs 26 points to reach 1,000 for his career.
- After scoring four points over 2 1/2 games, junior guard Caleb Shaw's 10-point second half Wednesday gave him four double-digit scoring games since December.
- San José State ranks last in the Mountain West for opponent field goal percentage at 48.7%, the 15th-highest opponent clip in the nation.
- The Spartans' last victory came Dec. 9 in overtime against Long Beach State.
- With the fourth-best strength of schedule, the Mountain West ranks sixth in NET among 31 Division I conferences.
- GCU is one eight MW teams in the NET top 100. Only the ACC, Big 12, Big East, Big Ten and SEC also have eight or more.
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