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They flew against the wind, and they flew far.
After being selected to finish seventh at the start of the season, the Seattle Pacific University men’s basketball team has defied expectations and advanced to the Great Northwest Athletic Conference Tournament semifinals.
The Falcons entered the tournament as the No. 3 seed, playing their first game against the sixth-seeded University of Alaska Fairbanks on Thursday, March 6. Seattle Pacific cruised to an 81-47 win.
Seattle Pacific learned from its past two encounters against Fairbanks and made sure to take control of the ball early in the first half. Barely seven minutes into the game, SPU led 22-17 and quickly expanded that lead to 35-21 by halftime.
Alaska Fairbanks shifted gears on defense in the second half. It became harder for SPU to get the ball around, but not impossible. The Falcons opened the second half with a 16-4 run, increasing their lead to 51-25. A stronger defense did not compensate for 27 missed shots from Fairbanks in the second half, letting the Falcons advance further in points and collect the win.
Top scorers:
Redshirt-junior guard Mason Landdeck and junior guard Owen Moriarty led SPU in scoring with 19 and 18 points, respectively.
Upcoming:
Seattle Pacific’s next game is against the second-seeded Northwest Nazarene University on Friday, March 7, at noon in Lacey, Washington.
The Falcons won their last outing against NNU 72-62 on Feb. 13. Seattle Pacific holds a slight scoring advantage, bearing the third-best field goal percentage in the conference at 47.9%, but Northwest Nazarene’s statistics in free throws, three-pointers and rebounding are nearly identical to SPU.
The win will ultimately be decided by who fights the hardest beneath the net, as the quarterfinal match pits the GNAC’s top scorer, NNU’s junior forward Kye Dickson (averaging 19.3 points per game), against its top rebounder, SPU’s junior forward Jaxon Nap (averaging 9.8 per game).
