• Boxscore & Play-by-Play

SEATTLE – Chris Banchero scored a career-high 34 points, 20 of them off passes from Rob Diederichs whose 19 assists Thursday broke the Great Northwest Athletic Conference record as ninth-ranked Seattle Pacific clinched at least a tie for the league men's basketball title with a 100-92 victory over Central Washington at Brougham Pavilion.

Ryan Looney became the first coach to direct SPU (21-3) to a conference championship in his inaugural season. The Falcons improved to 12-1 in GNAC play and guaranteed their sixth straight NCAA Division II Tournament appearance.

The league's automatic tournament berth was secured by SPU, which owns the tiebreaker advantage over Western Washington and CWU, the only two teams that can still tie for first place.

“It's special and it will probably mean even more a few weeks down the line than it does right now,” described Looney, who plans to savor the championship when the regular season is completed. “We talked in the locker room about taking these next three games one at a time because the most important thing is that we are able to play the regional tournament in Seattle.”

They are in good position to do just that. The SPU men are currently listed No. 1 in the West Region ratings that determine the postseason seeds. The top seed in each region gets to host the eight-team regional for the first three rounds of the NCAA Tournament.

The Falcons, who have a three-game lead in the standings, can win the league title outright with a victory in any of their final three games. All of those contests are on the road, beginning on Saturday at Saint Martin's.

The Wildcats (15-8) dropped to 9-4 in GNAC play. They play WWU in Bellingham on Sunday.

Diederichs was one of five seniors playing their final regular-season home game. The product of nearby Shorewood High School nearly had a triple-double with 10 rebounds and six points to go along with his school-record 19 assists. The previous SPU single-game record was 14 assists and the GNAC standard of 18 was set in 2008 by Alaska Anchorage's Luke Cooper.

“I couldn't do it without the guys on my team. I've got great scorers all around me,” said Diederichs, whose 148 assists are the 12th-highest single-season total in SPU history.

“I'm having the most fun out there just making it happen. I didn't know I broke the GNAC record, that's good news. I was hoping to get 20 assists, but I'll take the GNAC record.

The Falcons distributed assists on 30 of their 34 baskets en route to a 56-percent (34 of 61) shooting performance. CWU was limited to 44 percent (34 of 77) accuracy from the field.

SPU held a slim 70-67 lead midway through the second half before outscoring the Wildcats 16-4 over a five-minute span. Banchero tallied six points during the run that put the Falcons in control, 86-71, with 5:37 left to play.

Banchero, a junior point guard from Seattle's O'Dea High School, surpassed his previous career high of 33 points established Jan. 28 against Alaska Anchorage.

"You can come up with schemes all you want on offense, but at the end of the day against good teams you have to have some guys that can make individual plays. Chris Banchero has consistently been able to do that for us," Looney said.

Banchero became the 30th player in SPU history to reach the 1,000-point plateau and the second Falcon to reach that milestone in the last two game games. He has 1,005 career points and senior Brandon Larrieu (Puyallup, Wash./Franklin Pierce HS), who scored his 1,000th point on Saturday in Billings, Mont., has 1,022 points.

Larrieu scored 20 points Thursday for SPU, which also got 13 from Jeff Downs and 12 from Ryan Sweet.

Central was paced by the career-high 25 points of Chris Sprinker, while Toussaint Tyler added 16 and Shane Miller 15.

SPU led by as many as 15 points late in the game before Central close the contest with an 8-1 run.

The Falcons avenged their only conference loss, an 85-72 loss on Feb. 4 in Ellensburg, and snapped an eight-game losing streak against CWU in regular-season meetings.

Larrieu opened the game with a layup and 3-pointer, helping SPU race out to a 7-2 lead. That margin grew to 16-8 before the Wildcats scored 10 straight points. Jon Clift tallied the first eight points of the run, including a pair of treys, to give CWU its first lead at 18-16 with 13:17 left in the first half.

That was the first of eight lead changes during a tight first half that also featured seven ties.

The game was tied 43-43 before the Falcons finished with a 10-4 surge to claim a 53-47 halftime advantage. The margin could have been wider, but Scott Morse missed a long jumper at the end of the half, the first errant 3-pointer for SPU which made its first five treys.

SPU shot 6 of 10 from 3-point range for the game and Central was 6 of 21.

The Falcons broke through the 100-point barrier for the first time this season. Their previous high scoring output was 89 points, posted on three occasions.


NCAA Men's Basketball
Thursday, February 25, 2010
Brougham Pavilion/Seattle, Wash.

(#9) Seattle Pacific 100, Central Washington 92

CENTRAL WASHINGTON (15-8, 9-4 GNAC)
Sprinker 10-15 5-5 25; Tyler 7-17 1-2 16; Miller 2-3 10-10 15; Gibler 6-10 0-0 12; Clift 4-9 0-0 11; Sivak 3-10 0-2 7; Cook 1-10 1-2 3; Clyde 1-2 0-0 2; Snowden 0-1 1-2 1; Nelson 0-0 0-0 0. Totals 34-77 18-23 92.

SEATTLE PACIFIC (21-3, 12-1 GNAC)
Banchero 11-20 11-11 34; Larrieu 7-14 3-4 20; Downs 4-6 4-5 13; Sweet 6-11 0-0 12; Anderson 3-3 1-2 7; Diederichs 2-2 2-2 6; Wardell 0-1 4-4 4; Morse 1-3 0-0 3; Vranes 0-1 1-2 1; McHugh 0-0 0-0 0; Hope 0-0 0-0 0. Totals 34-61 26-30 100.

Central Washington............ 47  45 - 92
Seattle Pacific.................... 53  47 - 100

3-point goals--CWU 6-21 (Clift 3-5; Tyler 1-5; Miller 1-2; Sivak 1-1; Snowden 0-1; Cook 0-6; Sprinker 0-1), SPU 6-10 (Larrieu 3-4; Downs 1-3; Banchero 1-1; Morse 1-2). Fouled out--CWU-Clift; Clyde, SPU-None. Rebounds--CWU 33 (Sprinker 8), SPU 40 (Diederichs 10). Assists--CWU 18 (Clyde 4; Cook 4; Clift 4), SPU 30 (Diederichs 19). Total fouls--CWU 21, SPU 18. Technical fouls--CWU-None, SPU-None. Att.-1221.