Box Score    |    Final Stats

BELLINGHAM, Wash. – Seattle Pacific's Sharif Khan made a free throw with one second remaining, purposely missed the second and collected the rebound, but his follow shot caromed off the backboard as 17th-ranked Western Washington escaped with an 89-87 win to clinch the Great Northwest Athletic Conference regular-season men's basketball championship on Wednesday at Whatcom Pavilion.
 
A second-half comeback from a 19-point deficit fell just short for the Falcons (12-15), likely dealing a fatal blow to their bid for a GNAC Tournament spot as they dropped to 8-11 in league play.
 
"We did so many things well tonight," exclaimed first-year SPU coach Grant Leep. "We outrebounded them. We didn't turn the ball over. We had 20 assists on 32 baskets, our best ratio of the year.
 
"We did so many things well, it's just hard to take falling short tonight."
 
Six teams qualify for next week's conference playoffs. The top-three seeds are locked up and six teams are vying for the final three positions. Ninth-place SPU needs several of those teams to lose both of their remaining games to gain a berth.
 
"Obviously we wanted to do everything we could to get there," Leep said of the GNAC playoff pursuit. "The way that we handled our recent four-games in eight-day stretch with three wins, we put ourselves in a good position to do that and hoped to follow up with a win tonight.
 
"We still have a game to play and we're not going to waste any opportunities. Every time that we get together is a chance for us to improve and get better and to continue building the foundation of what we have in place."
 
The SPU men conclude their regular-season schedule on Saturday, visiting Burnaby, B.C. for a 7 p.m. game against Simon Fraser.
 
Western (22-5) improved to 16-3 to secure the No. 1 seed for the GNAC Tournament.

 

The Falcons trailed 65-46 before going on a seven-point spree, powered by two Hunter Eisenhower 3-pointers. That ignited a rally that eventually saw them draw within 87-86 on a dunk by Tony Miller with 6.3 seconds remaining.
 
Taylor Stafford was fouled with 5.7 seconds left and converted both free throws for WWU's final points. He then intentionally fouled Khan so the Falcons couldn't attempt a game-tying 3-pointer.
 
In a similar situation on Jan. 28 in Seattle against second-place Alaska Anchorage, Khan nailed a 3-pointer at the buzzer to force overtime. The plan was for him to replicate those heroics.
 
"We wanted to get the same thing that we did at the end of the Anchorage game. We didn't have any timeouts so we put that same group out there and wanted to get something that we thought our group could be familiar with that we could execute without having that timeout," Leep described.
 
"We didn't execute it as well as we would have liked, but to their credit in an up-three situation they chose to foul. That obviously changed what we could have done. Sharif did a great job making the first one and gave us an opportunity on the intentional miss and we fell just short."
 
Khan (Bellevue HS) swished the first free throw and his second bounded off to the left side. The freshman point guard collected the ball in the air and quickly pushed a 15-foot shot at the buzzer that banked off the glass and did not go in.
 
Miller (Woodinville HS) produced his 14th double-double with a 29-point, 15-rebound performance. The 6-foot-6 freshman forward increased his season total to 496 points (19.1 per game), needing just four more to become the 20th player in SPU history to record a 500-point season.
 
"Sometimes we watch him and forget he's a freshman," said Leep. "Tony just has such a great knack for scoring. But what we're most proud of is how much he's developed in other areas. His rebounding has improved and his defense has come such a long way this year. He's just becoming more of a complete player."

 

Gavin Long added 17 points for the Falcons and Joe Rasmussen had 10. Eisenhower came off the Falcons bench to score 14 second-half points, hitting 4 of 5 shots from 3-point range.
 
WWU reserve Deandre Dickson poured in 25 points on 9-for-11 shooting from the field. Stafford finished with 15 points, Jeffrey Parker 14 and Blake Fernandez 12.
 
The Vikings swept the season series, but both games were close. They needed overtime to get a 96-91 win on Dec. 3 in Seattle.
 
In Wednesday's first half, treys by Miller and Rasmussen gave SPU an early 6-0 lead. That was short-lived as Western stormed back to take an 11-10 edge.
 
The starters battled toe-to-toe for more than 10 minutes as neither team made a substitution until 9:12 was showing on the first-half clock. The starting units played to a 21-21 standoff, but the Vikings surged into the lead once some reserves entered for both teams.
 
Bench players registered the next 10 points for WWU, which went on a 10-4 run to claim the lead for good, at 31-25, with 6:51 left.
 
By halftime that margin was 46-37 as the Vikings' reserves had outscored their SPU counterparts by a 15-0 margin.
 
The score was 48-40 in the early stages of the second half when Western went on a 13-2 run, sparked by five points from Daulton Hommes.

 

Just when it appeared the hosts would run away with the game, the Falcons reserves started chipping in on the offensive end, netting 11 of the visitor's next 12 points to start the comeback.
 
Eisenhower (Wasilla, Alaska) compiled all of his 14 points during the final 12 minutes. He missed just one of his six shots, including the four treys.
 
"We've known all year that Hunter could shoot it. He came off the bench tonight ready to go and we needed his shooting ability," Leep said. "Tony and Joe set some great screens for him, got him open and then he just started knocking them in. When he gets hot like that it just opens up so much for us on offense."
 
 
NCAA MEN'S BASKETBALL
Wednesday, Feb. 22, 2017
Whatcom Pavilion / Bellingham, Wash.
 
at (#17) Western Washington 89, Seattle Pacific 87

SEATTLE PACIFIC (12-15, 8-11 GNAC)
Miller 11-24 5-7 29, Wooten 2-9 0-0 4, Rasmussen 3-9 2-2 10, Betu 0-4 4-4 4, Long 8-14 1-2 17, Eisenhower 5-6 0-0 14, Khan 2-3 1-2 7, Streufert 1-1 0-0 2. Totals 32-70 13-17 87.

WESTERN WASHINGTON (22-5, 16-3 GNAC)
Hommes 3-5 2-4 8, Parker 5-11 0-0 14, Schilder 3-4 0-0 6, Stafford 5-15 2-2 15, Fernandez 5-9 2-5 12, Dickson 9-11 6-7 25, Jasinsky 2-4 2-3 7, Kingma 1-1 0-0 2, Wallace 0-0 0-0 0. Totals 33-60 14-21 89.

Seattle Pacific........... 37   50  --  87
Western Washington........ 46   43  --  89

3-point goals--SPU 10-21 (Eisenhower 4-5, Rasmussen 2-6, Miller 2-5, Khan 2-2, Wooten 0-3), WWU 9-18 (Parker 4-5, Stafford 3-8, Jasinsky 1-3, Dickson 1-1, Hommes 0-1). Fouled out--SPU-None, WWU-None. Rebounds--SPU 37 (Miller 15), WWU 32 (Hommes 7). Assists--SPU 20 (Wooten 8), WWU 16 (Fernandez 5). Total fouls--SPU 17, WWU 15. Technical fouls--SPU-None, WWU-None. A-711.


Next SPU Men's Basketball Game
Seattle Pacific at Simon Fraser
Saturday, Feb. 25, 7:00 p.m. PST
West Gym / Burnaby, B.C.