Grand Canyon Earns Convincing 84-66 Win Over Southern Utah To Claim WAC Championship And Return To NCAA Tournament
Grand Canyon Earns Convincing 84-66 Win Over Southern Utah To Claim WAC Championship And Return To NCAA Tournament
GCU 84, SUU 66
LAS VEGAS – For the second time in three years Grand Canyon has punched its ticket into the NCAA Tournament. The No. 5 seed Lopes caught fire from the floor early and never looked back in an 84-66 triumph over No. 3 Southern Utah on Saturday in the 2023 Hercules Tires WAC Men’s Basketball Tournament Championship Game at The Orleans Arena.
GCU, winners of the 2021 WAC tournament, became the highest seeded team to win the event since Hawai’i (also the fifth seed) in 2001. The Lopes were also the first squad that won four games on the way to a WAC tournament title since UNLV accomplished the feat in 1998.
GCU rode a 12-2 run over a 5:35 span midway through the first half to open a 25-18 lead. Cameron Healy broke the surge with a corner 3-pointer for Southern Utah that closed the gap to 25-21. GCU would hit five of its final six shots in the opening half and hold the Thunderbirds without a field goal for the final 3:05 of the first period to take a 44-31 lead to the half.
The Lopes continued to build on the advantage with hot shooting from distance, as Gabe McGlothan hit his first five field goal attempts of the second half (two from 3-point range) for 12 points that extended the GCU edge to 64-48 at the under-12 media timeout. McGlothan finished the second half 7-of-8 from the floor with 16 points and three rebounds in just 15 minutes played.
GCU’s Ray Harrison was named the tournament’s Most Outstanding Player after leading all players in scoring for the week (80 points), filling up the stat sheet with 31 points, eight rebounds, eight assists and two steals in the title game. Joining Harrison on the WAC All-Tournament Team were McGlothan, Harrison Butler and Tevian Jones from Southern Utah and Trey Woodbury from Utah Valley.
2023 Hercules Tires WAC Men’s Basketball Tournament
Tournament Most Outstanding Player
Ray Harrison, Grand Canyon
All-Tournament Team
Ray Harrison, Grand Canyon
Gabe McGlothan, Grand Canyon
Harrison Butler, Southern Utah
Tevian Jones, Southern Utah
Trey Woodbury, Utah Valley
--WAC--