THE SCHEDULE
Wednesday, Nov. 22                       Biola at Seattle Pacific, 5:00 p.m.
                                                Brougham Pavilion (2,650) / Seattle, Wash.
                                                Live Webcast        Live stats
 

        Weekly release, with updated stats (PDF)

SEATTLE – Home at last.
 
For the first time this season – and for the only time in preseason play – the Seattle Pacific women's basketball team will get to play at home. After back-to-back road tournaments against West Region competition, the undefeated and now nationally ranked Falcons welcome Biola of Los Angeles on Wednesday in Brougham Pavilion.
 
The Thanksgiving Eve contest tips off at 5:00 p.m.
 
SPU did play an exhibition in Brougham against George Fox University on Nov. 4, scoring a 71-56 victory. But this will be their first home game of the season that counts.
 
The Falcons come with a 4-0 record after last weekend's victories at the Azusa Pacific West Region Crossover Classic: 80-69 against the host and No. 16-ranked Cougars on Friday, and 65-59 against UC San Diego on Saturday.
 
FOLLOW IT LIVE
Wednesday's game, and all remaining games this season, home and away, will have live stats and a free live Webcast. Tom Gialanella will be on the Webcast play-by-play for home contests. The appropriate link can be found at the top of this story.
 
TICKET TALK
The ticket window opens 60 minutes prior to tip-off. Prices are $10 for reserved seats, $7 for adult general admission, and $4 for students, youths, and senior citizens. Seattle Pacific faculty, staff, and students are admitted free with proper school ID.
 
NATIONAL NOTICE FOR SPU
After being among "others receiving votes" in the preseason poll, the Falcons have jumped into the national top 25 as compiled by the Women's Basketball Coaches Association. SPU is at No. 16 in this week's rankings, which were released on Tuesday, collecting 229 points.
 
Alaska Anchorage, off to a 5-0 start, jumped two spots to No. 2, trailing only Ashland of Ohio, which received all 23 first-place votes. Azusa Pacific, which had been No. 16 in the preseason before last Friday's loss to SPU, dropped one place.
 
The only other West Region team receiving votes was Point Loma Nazarene. The Sea Lions aren't in the top 25, but are No. 27 on the overall list.
 
McPHEE WINS GNAC PLAYER OF WEEK AWARD
Falcons senior Jordan McPhee, who scored a career-high 30 points in a victory on Friday against No. 16-ranked Azusa Pacific, then got Seattle Pacific's final 10 points of Saturday's win against UC San Diego, has been named the Great Northwest Athletic Conference's Player of the Week for women's basketball.

 

This is the first time McPhee (Normandy Park, Wash. / Mount Rainier HS) has won the weekly honor.
 
McPhee hit 11 of 16 from the field and 8 of 11 from the free throw line on Friday as SPU downed the host Cougars, 80-69. She also had nine rebounds, four steals, and dished two assists.
 
The next night against UCSD, the Falcons, after leading most of the way, were down 56-55 with 2:23 left in the game. That's when McPhee sank a pair of free throws to put SPU in front and start a personal 8-0 scoring surge that produced a 63-56 lead.
 
McPhee finished the night with 21 points. For the weekend, she had 51 points, 18 rebounds (nine at each end), shot 65.4 percent from the field (17 of 26) and 80 percent at the line (16 of 20).
 
She was named to the all-tournament team, as was fellow senior Courtney Hollander.
 




SO WHAT'S THE STORY THIS WEEK?
-- The Falcons have a 4-0 record for the fourth time in the last five years. The only exception to that was 2015, when they were 2-2 after four games.
-- This is the fourth straight year that SPU's fifth-game opponent has been a 'singleton' – that is to say, not part of a preseason tournament: home vs. San Francisco State in 2014 (an 84-54 win), at Point Loma Nazarene in 2015 (a 68-62 loss) and home vs. Evergreen State in 2016 (an 88-47 win).
-- SPU's most recent game against a first-year NCAA Division II team was Dec. 5, 2015 in Brougham Pavilion when Concordia-Portland was in its first year as a GNAC member. The Falcons won, 55-46.
-- After setting a school record by making 95.8 percent of their free throws (23 of 24) in the season-opening win against Humboldt State, SPU players were disappointed that they hit just 56.7 percent the next night on the way to beating Fresno Pacific. They were back on track last week, hitting a combined 81.1 percent in the victories against Azusa Pacific (14 of 18 for 77.8 percent) and UC San Diego (16 of 19 for 84.2).
-- But that was only half of it. SPU helped its own cause by keeping both opponents off the line. Azusa was just 3 of 4, San Diego a mere 7 of 10.
-- There's no entry anywhere in the record book for fewest turnovers in a game, but perhaps there should be: The Falcons committed just four in Saturday's victory against UC San Diego.
-- Julie Heisey has had one previous game against Biola: a 77-68 victory in Seattle on Nov. 18, 2005, in just her third game as Seattle Pacific's then-new head coach.
 

-- Senior forward Courtney Hollander has double-digit rebounds in three of her first four games: a pair of 10s, and an 11.
-- Carly Rataushk had the best shooting night of her career last Saturday against UC San Diego. The 6-foot-2 junior center drained 5 of 6 from the field (83.3 percent). Her previous best was .800 (4 of 5) last season against Humboldt State. Rataushk had two games of six field goals each in 2016-17, but her percentage in each of those was .667 (6 of 9).
 
SCOUTNG THE BIOLA EAGLES (1-1, 0-0 Pacific West)
All-time series: SPU leads, 3-1. Current series streak: SPU won 3. Last time: SPU 77, Biola 68 (Nov. 18, 2005 at Seattle). Eagles on the Web.
Eagles in a nutshell: Over the years, Biola has had its ups and downs just like every program. But it has put some very good teams on the floor, including 14 that have won 20 or more games. The most recent of those? That was just last season, when they went 23-8 and advanced to the NAIA Tournament. The Eagles already have defeated one GNAC team this year (67-64 at Northwest Nazarene last Saturday), and were scheduled to play at Saint Martin's on Tuesday. Back for Biola is 5-foot-4 senior guard DeMoria White, an NAIA second-team All-American last year when she was the team's leading scorer at 17.0 points per game. Exactly half of White's 180 field goals last year (and more than half of her shots) were from behind the 3-point arc. In her fwo games last weekend, she had 30 points at Cal Poly Pomona and 20 against Northwest Nazarene. Tatum Brimley, a 5-5 sophomore guard, averaged 15.5 points in her first two contests. Sara Dougan, a 6-4 junior forward, averages a team-leading 5.5 rebounds, to go along with 5.5 points.
 
COACH JULIE HEISEY SAYS …
(On Jordan McPhee's performance last week)
"Jordan was amazing – she made plays. She was doing a lot of different things. She was flying through the key to get rebounds, she had some really passes, too. We played two tough teams, and she made a lot of lay-ups."

 

(On beating both Azusa and UC San Diego)
"It was satisfying to me to see us do the things that we've worked on and knowing we were doing them pretty well. I liked the way we were defending; I like when we had good motion on offense. For being four games into the season, what I saw, I was pleased with. Not that things were perfect – but the things we should be doing at that time, I thought we were doing really well. We played with a lot of grit, and people made plays."
 
(On Biola)
"DeMoria White is pretty crafty. And then when she starts hitting 3s, that makes her even a little bit harder to guard. They do a good job of changing defenses, and they kind of do it on the fly, so it makes it harder because it disrupts your flow and you don't always know when the zone is coming. They're a team that isn't going to go away. They're going to play hard the whole time. If you get a lead, you need to make sure you're building on it and not letting them back in. They're fighters."
 
LET'S GO TO THE REPLAY
-- Jordan McPhee poured in a career-high 30 points on Friday night as Seattle Pacific knocked off No. 16-ranked Azusa Pacific on the Cougars' home floor in the APU West Region Crossover Classic women's basketball tournament, 80-69.
-- McPhee scored Seattle Pacific's final 10 points of the game on Saturday night, as the Falcons came from a one-point deficit late in the game to beat UC San Diego at the APU tourney, 65-59.
 
MARKING A MILESTONE
In reach
100th rebound         Jaylee Albert (has 92)
200th point            Julia Haining (has 194)
800th point            Courtney Hollander (has 780)
 
Made last week
300th point            Lindsay Lee (has 301)
 
AROUND THE WEST
It's no surprise that Alaska Anchorage is still one of the GNAC's three undefeated teams. The Seawolves are 5-0, with four of those wins by wide double-digit margins (50, 35, 43, and 28 points). But look who's back up top: Montana State Billings is 4-0, matching Seattle Pacific through the first two weeks. The Yellowjackets have redshirt senior forward Alisha Breen back after she missed all of last season with a knee injury, and she has been a huge boost, averaging 20.0 points and 8.3 rebounds. Western Oregon also is perfect at 3-0.
 
Point Loma Nazarene has the Pacific West's best record at 4-0, with Concordia Irvine at 2-0. Azusa Pacific was hit with last week's 80-69 loss to Seattle Pacific, but the Cougars are still a legitimate conference title contender. They and Point Loma were the preseason co-favorites to win the crown, and they meet next Saturday, Dec. 2, at APU.
 
The only unbeaten California Collegiate Athletic Association team is San Francisco State – and the Gators have played just one game. UC San Diego is 3-1 overall, its only loss being to SPU.
 
UP NEXT
The Falcons begin conference play next week with – what else? – a road trip. First up is Concordia-Portland on Thursday, Nov. 30, tipping off at 7:00 p.m. Then it's a visit to Western Oregon in Monmouth on Saturday, Dec. 2. That one starts at 2:00 p.m.
 
 
GNAC STANDINGS
                                                    Conference        Overall
Alaska Anchorage           0-0         5-0
Montana State Billings     0-0         4-0
Seattle Pacific            0-0         4-0
Western Oregon             0-0         3-0
Northwest Nazarene         0-0         3-1
Concordia-Portland         0-0         3-2
Simon Fraser               0-0         3-2
Alaska Fairbanks           0-0         2-2
Saint Martin's             0-0         2-2
Western Washington         0-0         2-2
Central Washington         0-0         1-3