Box Score    |    Final Stats

ELLENSBURG, Wash. – Naim Ladd scored 26 points for Central Washington, which tallied the final eight points Thursday to turn back a furious Seattle Pacific comeback and win 89-85 in a Great Northwest Athletic Conference men's basketball game at Nicholson Pavilion.
 
The Falcons rallied from a 13-point deficit to claim a four-point lead with 1:26 remaining before Central's Dom Hunter scored five straight points, giving his team the lead for good on a jumper with 32 seconds showing on the clock.
 
Joe Rasmussen topped SPU with 20 points, but had his potential go-ahead 3-point attempt blocked by Fuquan Niles with seven seconds to play. The Wildcats' Jawan Stepney made the first of two free throws with 3.8 seconds remaining and Terry Dawn capped the scoring with 1.3 left on a pair from the line after grabbing an offensive rebound.
 
Just seven players saw action for the injury-plagued Falcons (7-8), whose league record fell to 3-4. They were without starting guards Will Parker and Olivier-Paul Betu. Both were sidelined with injuries.
 
In their place, SPU started a pair of freshmen in the backcourt, Sharif Khan (Bellevue HS) and Gavin Long (Wenatchee HS). The inexperienced starting lineup featured three freshmen, one sophomore and one senior. Each starter played at least 34 minutes and Khan was on the court for the entire contest.

 

Long finished with 17 points and Khan added nine and a career-high five assists. Both Coleman Wooten and Tony Miller registered their league-leading seventh double-doubles. Wooten compiled 17 points and 10 rebounds while Miller had 14 and 11. They sparked SPU's 43-33 advantage on the boards.
 
"We couldn't be more proud of them for the situation that we were in and how hard they played," exclaimed first-year Falcons coach Grant Leep. "We had three freshmen in our starting lineup and Sharif Khan was making his first career start. Not only that, but we had to have him play 40 minutes."
 
Central (10-3) improved to 5-2 in GNAC games.
 
A 5-foot-7 sophomore guard from Seattle's Rainier Beach High School, Ladd hit half of his 18 shots and made 7 of 11 shots from 3-point range for the Wildcats.
 
Hunter, who entered the game ranked third nationally with a 26-point scoring average, had 20 points and Stepney finished with 13.
 
The Falcons trailed for most of the game and faced their largest deficit, at 77-64, with 7:49 left in the second half. They then staged a 17-2 run to claim their first lead since the 13-minute mark of the first half.
 
SPU reeled off 11 answered points and, after a Stepney layup momentarily slowed that spree, netted six more points. When Khan dribbled behind his back to lose a defender and nailed a 14-foot jumper with 3:10 remaining, the Falcons led 81-79 after hitting eight straight shots.
 
Stepney stopped that surge with a layup to even the score. Then Miller made a layup and Wooten converted two free throws to put SPU ahead 85-81 with 1:26 left and set up Central's game-ending eight-point run.
 
"We learned a lot about ourselves tonight. Our guys came together and battled," Leep said. "We were down 13 with less than eight minutes to go and ended up going up four.
 
"There is such a fine line between winning and losing a game. One possession here or one possession there is the difference in so many of our games this year. Credit to Central for making the plays down the stretch, but I couldn't be more proud the effort that our guys gave."
 
The Falcons shot 62 percent in the second half (18 of 29) to finish at 53 percent for the game (32 of 61). They made 8 of 18 treys.
 
Central shot 44 percent (31 of 70), including 15-for-31 accuracy on 3-pointers.
 
The difference in the game was ball possession as the Wildcats forced 18 turnovers while committing half that many themselves.

 

After an opening basket by Stepney, the visitors tallied five straight points, three of them from Rasmussen. Central quickly tied the score on a 3-pointer by Hunter that ignited a run that gave his team a 10-5 edge.
 
The Wildcats surged to a 21-16 lead before a seven-point surge put SPU into the lead, 23-21. Khan completed the run on a layup with 13:05 left in the first half.
 
Back-to-back treys by Jerome Bryant and Sage Woodruff followed by a Hunter jumper provided a 29-23 cushion for Central. That margin grew to as many as 11 points before the Wildcats settled for a 44-38 halftime advantage.
 
Keying CWU's first-half lead was a stifling defense that forced 10 turnovers, and a long-distance shooting display of 9-for-16 accuracy from 3-point range.
 
The SPU men remain on the road for a pair of games. They visit Nampa, Idaho to clash with Northwest Nazarene on Saturday at 6 p.m. Pacific Time before a trip to Lacey, Wash. on Tuesday to meet Saint Martin's at 7 p.m.
 
Leep is aware of the toll the extreme minutes could take on Thursday's seven-man rotation as the Falcons continue their current stretch of three road games in a six-day span.
 
"We have to be really smart about how we manage our guys. We give them a lot of different things in practice as far as game-planning and how we want to attack certain teams. We have to be really smart about how long we go.
 
"All of those practice sessions are geared toward the 28 games on our schedule. We need to be mindful that those games are the most important things right now, at the same time getting in the necessary work to prepare our guys the right way to be ready to play each and every time we hit the court."
 
 
NCAA MEN'S BASKETBALL
Thursday, Jan. 12, 2017
Nicholson Pavilion / Ellensburg, Wash.
 
at Central Washington 89, Seattle Pacific 85
 
SEATTLE PACIFIC (7-8, 3-4 GNAC)
Wooten 6-15 4-5 17, Miller 6-13 1-2 14, Rasmussen 7-13 4-6 20, Khan 4-7 0-0 9, Long 7-11 2-3 17, Eisenhower 2-2 0-0 6, Streufert 0-0 2-4 2. Totals 32-61 13-20 85.
 
CENTRAL WASHINGTON (10-3, 5-2 GNAC)
Dawn 0-5 2-2 2, Stepney 5-8 3-4 13, Niles 2-4 0-0 4, Ladd 9-18 1-2 26, Hunter 7-15 3-5 20, Woodruff 3-8 1-2 9, Rodgers 3-5 2-2 9, Bryant 2-4 0-0 6, Garret 0-3 0-0 0. Totals 31-70 12-17 89.
 
Seattle Pacific        38   47  -  85
Central Washington     44   45  -  89
 
3-point goals--SPU 8-18 (Eisenhower 2-2, Rasmussen 2-5, Miller 1-3, Wooten 1-3, Khan 1-3, Long 1-2), CWU 15-31 (Ladd 7-11, Hunter 3-7, Woodruff 2-4, Bryant 2-3, Rodgers 1-1, Dawn 0-4, Stepney 0-1). Fouled out--SPU-None, CWU-None. Rebounds--SPU 43 (Miller 11), CWU 33 (Niles 6). Assists--SPU 14 (Khan 5), CWU 19 (Hunter 5). Total fouls--SPU 13, CWU 16. Technical fouls--SPU-None, CWU-None. A-1519.
 
 
Next SPU Men's Basketball Game
Seattle Pacific at Northwest Nazarene
Saturday, Jan. 14, 6:00 p.m. PST
Johnson Sports Center / Nampa, Idaho