Box Score    |    Final Stats (html)    |    VIDEO: Coach Ryan  Looney

SEATTLE – Andy Avgi scored 29 points, including a 3-pointer that banked in from the top of the key to force overtime and enable third-ranked Western Oregon to escape Brougham Pavilion with an 84-82 men's basketball win over No. 19 Seattle Pacific on Saturday night.
 
The Falcons (17-5) had their eight-game winning streak stopped, dropping to 10-4 in Great Northwest Athletic Conference play. They also lost the first meeting in overtime, a 96-90 setback on Jan. 7 in Monmouth, Ore.
 
Western Oregon (20-2) won its 11th straight game and solidified its position atop the GNAC standings with a 13-1 record.
 
"I was proud of our team's effort for the most part," said SPU coach Ryan Looney. "When you're playing the No. 3-ranked team in the country, your margin for error isn't very high. And, especially in the second half of the game, we turned it over way too many times and gave them a chance.
 
"Credit to them, they've got an experienced, veteran group who just made some winning plays down the stretch and we did not."


 
The Wolves went ahead for good, at 80-77, 1:30 into the extra session on a 3-pointer by Jordan Wiley. That provided their first lead since the 11-minute mark of the first half. Teammate Devon Alexander followed with a free throw.
 
The Falcons drew within 84-82 on a Bryce Leavitt layup with 13 seconds remaining and still had hope when Alexander missed two free throws at 10.7. But Gabe Colosimo's 3-point try from the top of the key caromed off the back of the rim and time expired.
 
Avgi made 10 of 15 shots from the field, a figure that included 5-for-7 shooting on 3-pointers. The bruising 6-foot-6 forward compiled 34 points in this year's first encounter against SPU.
 
"Right now he is probably the MVP of the league and we haven't found anyone who is capable of guarding him," SPU coach Ryan Looney said.
 
Avgi's trey with 41.6 left capped the scoring in regulation, tying the game 76-76.
 
The Falcons missed two shots on the ensuing possession, but retained the ball on an offensive rebound by Colosimo. After a timeout, SPU turned the ball over on a five-second count during an inbounds play with 4.8 seconds left in regulation.
 
Alexander had a chance at the game-winner at the regulation buzzer, but his 3-point try rimmed off.

 

Senior Mitch Penner scored 23 points to pace the Falcons, who also got 12 apiece from Colosimo and Brendan Carroll.
 
Senior center Gilles Dierickx contributed his second straight double-double with 10 points and 11 rebounds. He sparked SPU's commanding 46-26 margin on the boards, with 19 of those rebounds coming on the offensive end.
 
"Gilles did a good job providing a little bit of offense for us and he did a good job rebounding," said Looney. "He had a couple pretty big put-backs for us. But he needs to challenge himself to be better on the defensive end."
 
Wiley finished with 17 points for the Wolves while Omlid Tanner had 16 and Julian Nichols 10.
 
Trailing by 14, WOU started the second half with a 9-2 run to draw within 51-44. SPU had the lead back out to 61-48 when Dierickx got a put-back basket with 13:28 left to play.
 
A 10-point run brought the Wolves back in it, closing the gap to 61-58 and setting up a tight final 11 minutes of regulation during which SPU's lead never grew larger than six points.
 
Despite the loss, there were plenty of things that pleased Looney.
 
"In the first half we responded really well after a tough first four minutes of the game. Our execution on offense was good. Once we got past that first four minutes we really sat down and guarded too. If you look at the box we did a fantastic job rebounding, we were plus-20 on the glass in the game."
 
But the Falcons committed 14 turnovers, twice as many as they forced, and WOU parlayed those miscues into 21 points.
 
The Wolves hit their opening three shots, two of them treys, to gain an 8-2 lead two minutes into the game. Their margin was 19-12 after Avgi drained a 3-pointer at 13:23.
 
SPU scored the next eight points, on 3-pointers by Coleman Wooten and Joe Rasmussen and a Colosimo layup, to claim its first edge at 20-19.
 
Following two Avgi free throws, the Falcons forged a 10-2 run, including four points apiece from Colosimo and Penner. That surge netted a 30-23 advantage with 6:47 showing on the clock.

 

SPU staged another spree, this time with seven unanswered points, to go ahead 42-28. When Sam Simpson hit a 3-pointer from the right baseline with 23 seconds remaining, the hosts owned a 49-35 lead they took into the locker room at halftime.
 
Stellar shooting fueled the Falcons first-half success. They shot 63 percent (17 of 27), including a 7-for-10 effort from 3-point range.
 
That accuracy dipped as SPU shot just 29 percent (10 of 34) after halftime to finish at 44 percent for the game (27 of 61).
 
"Our attention to detail with execution on offense wasn't the same as what it was early in the game," explained Looney. "We were settling for some shots that we probably weren't taking in the first half of the game.
 
"If we could have simulated how crisp and how hard we were running offense in the first half, in the second, it might have been a little bit different story."
 
The Wolves countered with 48-percent shooting (29 of 61) and nailed 13 of 29 treys.
 
Looney seeks to avoid any carryover effect that this setback may have on next week's games.
 
"We don't want one disappointing night to turn into two, which happened to us earlier this year. We have to regroup, hit the reset button, and come back to practice Monday and get ourselves ready for the next one."
 
The SPU men now embark on their final road trip of the season, a three-game stretch that starts on Thursday at Northwest Nazarene. They visit Central Washington on Saturday, Feb. 13 and Saint Martin's on Tuesday, Feb. 16.
 
The Falcons finish their regular-season slate with three home games, beginning with a Feb. 20 contest against Montana State Billings that will be televised live at 9 p.m. on ROOT Sports.
 
"Losing this one just makes it that much more important for us to do a nice job in these last six games that we have," Looney concluded. "We're going to take it one game at a time, but it just puts a little bit more pressure on us to try to get each one of them done."


NCAA MEN'S BASKETBALL
Saturday, Feb. 6, 2016
Brougham Pavilion / Seattle, Wash.

#3 Western Oregon 84, at #19 Seattle Pacific 82 (ot)

WESTERN OREGON (20-2, 13-1 GNAC)
Omlid 6-8 2-2 16, Avgi 10-15 4-10 29, Alexander 3-12 1-4 7, Nichols 3-12 2-2 10, Wiley 6-12 2-2 17, Roth 1-2 2-2 5, Strickland 0-0 0-0 0, Thompson 0-0 0-0 0. Totals 29-61 13-22 84.

SEATTLE PACIFIC (17-5, 10-4 GNAC)
Wooten 2-4 0-0 5, Penner 5-12 13-15 23, Dierickx 3-8 4-8 10, Leavitt 3-8 0-0 6, Carroll 4-12 1-2 12, Colosimo 5-11 0-0 12, Rasmussen 3-3 0-0 8, Simpson 2-2 0-0 6, Parker 0-1 0-0 0. Totals 27-61 18-25 82.

Western Oregon................   35   41    8  -   84
Seattle Pacific...............   49   27    6  -   82

3-point goals--WOU 13-29 (Avgi 5-7, Wiley 3-5, Nichols 2-8, Omlid 2-4, Roth 1-2, Alexander 0-3), SPU 10-23 (Carroll 3-9, Colosimo 2-6, Simpson 2-2, Rasmussen 2-2, Wooten 1-2, Parker 0-1, Penner 0-1). Fouled out--WOU-Omlid, SPU-None. Rebounds--WOU 26 (Omlid 6), SPU 46 (Dierickx 11). Assists--WOU 11 (Nichols 4), SPU 12 (Leavitt 7). Total fouls--WOU22, SPU 18. Technical fouls--WOU-None, SPU-None. Att-670.


Next SPU Men's Basketball Game
Seattle Pacific at Northwest Nazarene
Thursday, Feb. 11, 6:00 p.m. PST
Johnson Sports Center/Nampa, Idaho