O Canada: 2-game trip enhances summer work

The last time a Grand Canyon team left the country, the Lopes wound up winning 30 games, capturing regular-season and postseason conference championships and upsetting Saint Mary's in the 2024 NCAA Tournament.

Aiming to venture north of expectations again will start with traveling north of the border next week to Vancouver, British Columbia, for a pair of games against Canadian college teams.

The NCAA amended its foreign trip rule to allow teams to take one yearly, rather than every four years that would have delayed a follow-up to GCU's 2023 Bahamas tour. For a Lopes team melding eight transfers with the key returning trio of senior guards Makaih Williams and Caleb Shaw and sophomore center Efe Demirel, the allotment of 10 additional summer practices to prepare for the Canadian trip and its two exhibition games can advance the progress.

But after two months of work in GCU Basketball Practice Facility, the Lopes are becoming as familiar as the red bricks surrounding the courts.

"I can already see we're really connected off the court," said GCU senior Tyler Behrend, a 6-foot-10 power forward/center who started at Tulsa last season. "We do a lot off the court. Everyone is doing their part to make sure that, when the season starts, we're as strong as we can be. I feel like I've known these guys for a while. We're all getting the hang of it pretty fast and learning each other."

In his seventh year at GCU, Lopes head coach Bryce Drew starts the summer with the focus on the program's defensive pillar – establishing concepts, angles and ball-screen coverages.

The Tuesday against Mount Royal and Thursday game against Trinity Western, which already faced Purdue and Marquette this month, will give the coaches opportunities to evaluate live repetitions and provide video for teaching tools.

"The practice days have been really good just to get more hours on the court with players," said Drew, whose team's Monday-Friday trip will include sightseeing. "The next part is we get to go on the trip. They can feel what a trip is like with our team and the routine for a game.

"Also, when the lights come on, you get to see a different version of the player. How do they react? How do they react with officials? I think the games are going to be very beneficial, and then obviously the time they get to spend with each other in the hotel and in a foreign country."

Williams and Shaw will be unable to play on the trip due to injury, but Williams will resume practice upon the team's return to Phoenix. Senior point guard Dylan Darling, one of the largest transfer portal splashes from St. John's, had missed practice time recently but has returned to show the relentless ball pressure and steady floor direction that attracted the Lopes to him.

"His experience and the confidence he brings to the point guard position will help other guys on the team," Drew said.

The former Big Sky Player of the Year at Idaho State drew more regard in March for a game-winning shot against Kansas that put St. John's in the Sweet 16.

"I'm excited to go play a game against a different team and go out there and play with this team," Darling said. "We've got a lot of new faces. It's been a fun summer so far. I think we've jelled pretty well. I'm excited to go compete with them.

"We've got an older group, an experienced group, a more mature group than groups I've been a part of in the past. It's been a fun group to be around and to compete with. I think the Havocs will enjoy watching us this year."

The new look of the Lopes will be even more on display next week while Williams and Shaw are out, leaving opportunities for seven transfers who have prior Division I starting experience to show the team's depth. The roster was formed with balance that makes for position battles and lineup flexibility, including taking looks at Demirel and Behrend on the court together next week.

The GCU frontcourt also has been bolstered by the additions of Wake Forest transfer Omaha Biliew, a 6-foot-8 power forward who was a 2023 McDonald's All-American, and East Tennessee State transfer Blake Barkley, whose versatility with perimeter shooting and rebounding allows him to play either forward spot at 6 feet 8.

"We wanted to address some of the physicality," Drew said. "The Mountain West is a really physical conference. Bringing in some bigger bodies that are used to playing against bigger bodies and being really physical was one thing. Also trying to get, the best we could, guys we'd thought would really get along chemistry-wise. Last year, we had a really good group from that standpoint. So far, we like this group with chemistry."

But that aggression extends to the backcourt, where the Lopes have taken on a "confrontational" offensive personality in recent seasons. GCU still has to install many of its offensive packages, focusing this trip on establishing spacing, passing and movement on offense.

"We have a lot of bodies banging each other, and that's a good thing," Drew said. "We like that."

The addition of Behrend is elevating the big man play with him and Demirel pushing each other daily to form the Lopes' defensive backbone.

Defense has been a program hallmark under Drew. Over his six-season tenure, GCU ranks fifth nationally for defensive field goal percentage at 40.2% behind only Houston, Tennessee, UC Irvine and San Diego State.

"We're going to be defensive monsters," Behrend said. "I think we've got a bunch of dogs out here, ready to hoop and lay it on the line for their teammates."

Williams has seen it and looks the part as well HIs offseason weight room work shows on a leaner, more muscular frame (6-2 and 190 pounds) and a more vocal leadership role with teammates for his third GCU season.

"We have some dogs," Williams said, repeating Behrend's take separately. "We play hard no matter what. We have eight guys available for practice sometimes, and we're out there going as hard as we can. We're already looking really good."

Grand Canyon University Athletics

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Blake Barkley

Tyler Behrend

Omaha Biliew

Dylan Darling

Efe Demirel

Caleb Shaw

Makaih Williams

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