Box Score    |    VIDEO: Joe  Rasmussen

SEATTLE – Coach Ryan Looney rallied his troops before tip-off. His players did the rallying during the game.
 
Joe Rasmussen came off the bench to pour in a career-high 20 points for Seattle Pacific, which rallied from an 11-point first-half deficit Friday to defeat BYU-Hawaii 84-60 in the first round of the Sodexo Challenge men's basketball tournament in its home opener at Brougham Pavilion.
 
Reserve players produced 38 points for the Falcons (2-1) while BYUH (1-1) got just five from the bench. SPU was playing without its top-two scorers. Brendan Carroll (20.5 ppg) and Mitch Penner (11.0 ppg) were sidelined with injuries.
 
"I'm just proud of how our team played," exclaimed SPU coach Ryan Looney. "A lot of teams with their two leading scorers out would find every excuse in the book why they couldn't be successful and our guys did the exact opposite.
 
Looney addressed the situation of playing shorthanded in his pre-game speech.
 
"What we communicated in the locker room before the game is regardless of who is on the floor, let's play as hard as we possibly can and make sure that everyone who was there watching knows when they leave which team gave the better effort."



A 6-foot-8 junior center, Rasmussen hit 9 of 11 shots from the field and compiled his 20 points in just 17 minutes. His previous best scoring output was 14 points against Northwest Christian on Dec. 17, 2013. He is the son of former eight-year NBA veteran Blair Rasmussen, who played in Denver and Atlanta.
 
Three other SPU players tallied double-digit points, including Gilles Dierickx and Bryce Leavitt with 12 apiece and Will Parker with 11. In his first collegiate start at point guard, Parker responded with a career-high seven assists.
 
Ian Harwood scored 17 points to pace the Seasiders, who also got 16 from Scott Friel and 12 from Justin Yamzon.
 
The Falcons shot 63 percent from the field (30 of 48), while limiting BYUH to 36-percent accuracy (21 of 58).
 
Harwood netted 13 points inside the opening seven minutes, leading the Seasiders to an early 20-11 advantage with 13:21 left in the first half. A later six-point surge put them up 28-17 with 7:55 showing on the clock.
 
"I was very concerned early on," Looney said. "When you have guys out that you normally count on a lot on game day, your margin of error goes way down.
 
"You think back to the first 10 minutes and we turned it over way too many times, we gave up some offensive rebounds and Harwood's post catches were way too easy. We found ourselves in a hole because of it."

 

The SPU defense stiffened and surrendered only two points the rest of the half. The offense got rolling, reeling off 17 unanswered points to claim a 34-28 lead 2:56 before halftime. Parker contributed two 3-pointers and an assist during that spree.
 
After a jumper by Friel at 1:49, the Falcons closed the first half with six straight points to forge a 40-30 lead. They converted 73 percent of their first-half shots (16 of 22), including 4-for-8 accuracy on 3-pointers.
 
"We did a good job making some adjustments with offense, getting into some of our ball-screen stuff," Looney explained. "They were giving so much help on the ball-handler and Joe a lot of times was the man left open rolling back to the rim. Our perimeter players did a good job finding him."
 
The margin grew as large as 24 points during the second half.
 
The Sodexo Challenge concludes Saturday afternoon in Brougham Pavilion, beginning at 12:30 p.m. with Central Washington playing BYU-Hawaii. SPU clashes with Hawaii-Hilo at 3 p.m.
 
Central defeated Hilo 100-87 in Friday's first game of the tournament.
 
"It's just a huge challenge for us," Looney said of coming back 18 hours later for another game.
 
"Great teams want to be consistent. We're going to find out if we're capable of doing it on back-to-back days."


NCAA MEN'S BASKETBALL
Sodexo Challenge
Friday, Nov. 20, 2015
Brougham Pavilion / Seattle, Wash.

at Seattle Pacific 84, BYU-Hawaii 60

BYU-HAWAII (1-1)
Park 1-4 0-1 2, Harward 7-10 2-3 17, Yamzon 3-7 6-6 12, Lange 2-8 2-2 8, Friel 6-18 3-4 16, Wolfgramm 2-6 0-0 4, Ching 0-0 1-2 1, Berry 0-0 0-0 0, Andrade 0-2 0-0 0, Perkins 0-1 0-0 0, McCleary 0-0 0-0 0, Ford 0-1 0-0 0, Nelson 0-1 0-0 0, Lee 0-0 0-0 0. Totals 21-58 14-18 60.

SEATTLE PACIFIC (2-1)
Simpson 2-5 1-2 7, Swanson 2-4 0-1 4, Dierickx 6-6 0-3 12, Leavitt 5-7 2-3 12, Parker 3-6 2-2 11, Rasmussen 9-11 2-3 20, Wooten 1-1 2-2 5, Colosimo 1-2 2-2 5, Betu 1-3 1-2 4, Streufert 0-2 4-4 4, Poulsen 0-0 0-0 0, Johnson 0-1 0-0 0, Eisenhower 0-0 0-0 0. Totals 30-48 16-24 84.

BYU-Hawaii....................  30   30   -  60
Seattle Pacific...............  40   44   -  84

3-point goals--BYUH 4-18 (Lange 2-7, Friel 1-4, Harward 1-1, Park 0-1, Andrade 0-1, Ford 0-1, Nelson 0-1, Yamzon 0-2), SPU 8-20 (Parker 3-6, Simpson 2-5, Wooten 1-1, Colosimo 1-1, Betu 1-2, Swanson 0-1, Streufert 0-1, Leavitt 0-1, Rasmussen 0-2). Fouled out--BYUH-Friel, SPU-None. Rebounds--BYUH 25 (Harward 8), SPU 35 (Dierickx 7). Assists--BYUH 5 (Yamzon 3), SPU 16 (Parker 7). Total fouls--BYUH 25, SPU 19. Technical fouls--BYUH-None, SPU-None. Att.-430.


Next SPU Men's Basketball Game
Sodexo Challenge
Hawaii-Hilo at Seattle Pacific
Saturday, Nov. 21, 3:00 p.m. PST
Brougham Pavilion / Seattle, Wash.