WWU WEST REGION CROSSOVER SCHEDULE
Friday, Nov. 9                       Seattle Pacific vs. Fresno Pacific, 5:00 p.m.
                                                Carver Gymnasium / Bellingham, Wash.
                                                Live Webcast        Live stats
 
Saturday, Nov. 10                Seattle Pacific vs. Humboldt State, 5:00 p.m
                                                Carver Gymnasium / Bellingham, Wash.
                                                Live Webcast        Live stats
 
 
        Weekly release (PDF)

SEATTLE – And so it begins. A brand-new season. A mostly new roster.
 
And the start of a new era for Seattle Pacific women's basketball.
 
After two scrimmages and an exhibition game, the Falcons tip off the 2018-19 campaign this weekend in Bellingham at the Western Washington West Region Crossover tournament.
 
First up is Fresno Pacific on Friday at 5:00 p.m. in Carver Gymnasium. Then on Saturday at 5:00, it'll be Humboldt State on the other side of the court. Host Western Washington will play the opposite team in the 7:00 game each night.
 
The moment the ball it tipped on Friday, Mike Simonson's first season as SPU's head coach officially gets under way.
 
In the lead-up to this weekend's opener, Seattle Pacific got its first taste of live-game action last Saturday against NCAA Division III power George Fox University. The Falcons staged a big second-half rally before ultimately falling one point short, 75-74.
 
FOLLOW IT LIVE
Both games this weekend will have free live Webcasts and free live stats. The Webcasts will be video-only, as no audio commentary will be available. The appropriate links are at the top of this story.
 
SODEXO CLASSIC SET FOR NEXT WEEK
SPU's home schedule begins next weekend in Brougham Pavilion with the annual Sodexo Classic. The Falcons and Western Washington will be joined by Azusa Pacific and UC San Diego, both of whom advanced to last season's NCAA Division II West Regionals and are the preseason favorites in the Pacific West Conference and California Collegiate Athletic Association, respectively.
 
Western and San Diego open the tournament on Friday, Nov. 16, at 1:00 p.m., and Seattle Pacific takes on Azusa Pacific at 5:00. The Vikings and Falcons keep their same time slots on Saturday the 17^th, but swap opponents.
 
In between, the SPU men will host Central Washington, Azusa Pacific, and Westminster College. Central and Azusa play at 3:00 p.m. on the 16^th, with the Falcons and Westminster in the 7:00 p.m. game. On the 17^th, it's Central-Westminster at 3, and Seattle Pacific-Azusa at 7:00.
 




SO WHAT'S THE STORY THIS WEEK?
-- This is the 44^th season of SPU women's basketball. The first official varsity season was 1975-76.
-- The Falcons are 34-9 in season-opening games.
-- That includes victories in their last six openers and 17 of their last 18.
-- The only one of those that did not go in SPU's favor was in 2011 when UC San Diego rolled to a 68-47 victory.
-- In 2017, Seattle Pacific started off with a 69-49 rout of Humboldt State in the West Region Crossover Classic at Fresno Pacific.
-- The SPU-Humboldt-Fresno Pacific-Western Washington foursome are sharing the same court in the season-opening tournament for the sixth year in a row. This is the second one to take place in Bellingham. The Falcons also have hosted twice, Fresno once and Humboldt once.
-- The Falcons have swept the Sunbirds and Lumberjacks in all five of those previous tournaments.
-- Last year against Humboldt, SPU scored the first six points of the game, was tied just once (at 11-11) and never trailed.
-- In the Fresno Pacific game on the Sunbirds' home court, the Falcons trailed just once (at 3-2), and were tied twice (at 4-4 and 6-6), but otherwise led the rest of the way.
-- After not seeing any action against Humboldt in the opener, Cici West made her Seattle Pacific debut with 12 points and five rebounds off the bench against Fresno Pacific.
-- The 29-game winning streak that SPU has against Humboldt State began on Dec. 30, 1993, with a 76-68 victory in the NorCal / Pac West Challenge in Davis, California. The teams had split their first two games. SPU won the first-ever contest between them, 89-69 in Seattle on Jan. 2, 1993, then Humboldt prevailed by a 69-67 count on Nov. 27, 1993.
-- A little more than half of those games came when the Falcon and Lumberjacks shared the same conference affiliation: three seasons in the Pacific West (1998-99 through 2000-01) and then through the first five years of the GNAC (2001-02 through 2005-06). Humboldt left for the CCAA after that.
 
SCOUTING THE FRESNO PACIFIC SUNBIRDS: 13-15, 11-9 PAC WEST (tie 6^th)
All-time series: SPU leads, 7-1. Current series streak: SPU won 6. Last time: SPU 78, Fresno 70 (Nov. 11, 2017 at Fresno, Calif.). Sunbirds on the Web.
Sunbirds in a nutshell: Fresno Pacific returns its two leading scorers and four of their top six from last season as it looks to continue an upward trend. The Sunbirds made an eight-game improvement in 2017-18, climbing from single-digit wins at 5-23 all the way up to 13-15. Bree Alvarez, a 5-foot-8 redshirt senior guard, was the leading scorer at 13.8 points per game while averaging just 23.1 minutes. Also back with her 12.7 scoring average is 5-2 sophomore guard Jessica Malazarte. In addition to her points, Malazarte got her teammates involved in the action with her 3.8 assists per game. With 107 total, she was the only Sunbirds player with triple digits in that department. Another returning double-digit scorer is 5-11 junior forward Cassie Pisik. She not only averaged 11.4 points, Pisek pulled down a team-leading 6.9 rebounds per game. Fresno Pacific averaged 71.4 points per game in 2017-18, but that often was not quite enough, as it gave up 73.1.
 
SCOUTING THE HUMBOLDT STATE LUMBERJACKS: 19-13, 14-8 CCAA (tie 3^rd)
All-time series: SPU leads, 30-1. Current series streak: SPU won 29. Last time: SPU 69, HSU 49 (Nov. 10, 2017 at Fresno, Calif.). Lumberjacks on the Web.
Lumberjacks in a nutshell: Humboldt State is coming off an appearance in the last season's NCAA West Regionals, where it then proceeded to make the most of its opportunity. The Lumberjacks were seeded third CCAA tourney, but knocked off No. 2 seed Cal Poly Pomona in the semifinals and top-seeded UC San Diego in the championship game. Then, seeded No. 8 in the eight-team regionals, Humboldt upset top seed and host Azusa Pacific in the first round, 66-60, before falling to Alaska Anchorage in the next night's semifinals, 81-73. Returning are No. 2 scorer Isamar Conde, a 5-10 senior forward who averaged 10.8 points and 5.4 rebounds, and No. 4 scorer, 5-5 junior guard Tyra Turner (7.1 points and a team-leading 3.4 assists). However, sister Tyla Turner, also a 5-5 junior, who led Humboldt in scoring (17.2) and rebounding (6.2) is no longer with the team as of late October. Gone via graduation is Kindall Murie, who averaged 7.2 points and tallied a team-high 13 in last year's preseason game against SPU.
 
SIMONSON TAKES THE REINS
Student manager. Head student manager. Video coordinator. Video assistant. Coordinator of operations.
 
Assistant coach.
 
Head coach.

Through the years, Mike Simonson has paid his dues, worked his way up step by step and now has the chance to lead his own program as he begins his first season in charge of Seattle Pacific.

 

The native of Edmonds, just a few miles north of Seattle, is ready to get the new campaign going.

"One thing I've been very pleased with is almost every practice, every scrimmage, every exhibition, the journey along the way, we've improved every time. That is very exciting for a young team that is inexperienced, when you're seeing growth this early and not stalling in between practices and in between scrimmages and exhibitions. We're actually making progress on things that we're working on, and that's very exciting for this young team."
 
Simonson came to Seattle Pacific in 2016 as the lead assistant after nine years in various roles with the Washington State University men's program. The Falcons went 19-11 during his first season as part of Heisey's staff, then jumped to 23-8 last season, playing in the Great Northwest Athletic Conference Tournament championship game and qualifying for the NCAA West Regionals.
 
At WSU, where he earned his degree in social sciences with an emphasis on history, Simonson spent nine years in the aforementioned roles with the men's program. The lead assistant job with Heisey was his first foray into coaching.
 
"Freshman year, I went to Arizona State, and that's when I watched a college basketball game. I saw a coach put his arm around a player on television. And I realized, 'Wow – that coach right there is touching that kid's life,' " Simonson said. "I think I love that aspect of coaching - the mentorship. Then I had this huge passion, this fire to become a college basketball coach."
 
Simonson won't be the only familiar face on the Falcons' bench.
 
 

Sasha Anderson, a longtime volunteer assistant for Heisey, has moved up to full-time assistant. She emphasizes an attention to details and has a penchant for defense.
 
 

On the offensive side, former Falcons star Katie Benson has returned to her alma mater to fill the other assistant's role. Benson played 111 games for SPU from 2011-14, averaging 14.8 points, 6.8 rebounds, and was a two-time All-GNAC first team selection.
 
"Whenever you're stepping into your first head coaching position, it's really important you have someone on your staff who you trust and who cares for the ladies – and that's Sasha Anderson to a 'T', Simonson said. "Katie's calling is to connect with people. That's a quality that's going to make her a tremendous coach."
 
FALCONS PICKED FOR 7^TH IN GNAC
Seattle Pacific has been tabbed for a seventh-place finish in the upcoming Great Northwest Athletic Conference season.
 
SPU received 55 points in the voting by the conference's 11 coaches. Northwest Nazarene and Alaska Anchorage were in a near dead heat for the favorite's role. NNU received six first-place votes and 116 points; UAA collected the other five firsts and wound up with 115 points. Those two teams tied for last year's regular-season title with 18-2 records.
 
"Our conference is very strong. So when you lose six seniors, including a couple of All-GNAC players (Courtney Hollander and Jordan McPhee), I understand that the teams in our conference are going to pick us a little bit lower," first-year head coach Mike Simonson said. "Especially when some other teams are very strong and return a bunch."

IT'S ALL ABOUT THE REGION
Seattle Pacific will play 28 games, this winter, and from the opening tip on Friday against Fresno Pacific to the final buzzer on March 2 at Concordia-Portland, every one of them will be against West Region opponents.
 
In Division II, that is crucial, as a team's record versus in-region competition goes a long way toward determining which schools ultimately make the NCAA Tournament.
 
Of those 28 games, 20 will be within the Great Northwest Athletic Conference; the other eight are non-conference. Those 28 games will be split right down the middle: 14 at home in Brougham Pavilion, 14 in other venues.
 
This week's neutral court contests against Fresno Pacific and Humboldt State are the first two on the out-of-town non-conference slate. The other two are at Cal State Los Angeles and at Concordia Irvine in mid-December.
 
Visitors to Brougham Pavilion will include Azusa Pacific and UC San Diego in next week's Sodexo tourney, followed by Holy Names on Nov. 20 and Academy of Art on Dec. 12. Of the eight non-conference games, five will be against Pacific West schools (Fresno, Azusa, Holy Names, Art, and Irvine), and three against California Collegiate Athletic Association teams (Humboldt, San Diego, and CSULA).
 
FUN WITH NUMBERS
-- Most teams are glad to play .500 ball away from home, but the Falcons did much better than that last season. In 20 games outside of Brougham Pavilion, they went 13-7. That included 10-4 in true road games and 3-3 on neutral courts.
-- Taking care of the basketball was a big part of last season's success. In 31 games, SPU had few turnovers than its opponent in 23 of them, and won 17 of those games. With a goal of having no more than 15 turnovers in any game, the Falcons met or beat that goal 20 times (18 games with fewer than 15, two games with exactly 15), and had a 16-4 record when that happened.
-- Most teams at this level are going to score their share of points, but the Falcons kept the defensive clamps tight for much of the 2017-18 campaign. They ranked No. 1 in the GNAC for fewest points allowed per game (61.4), and kept the opponent below 70 in 23 of the 32 games. Seattle Pacific had a 21-2 record in such games.
 
MILESTONES IN THE MAKING
100^th point      Kaprice Boston (has 82)
100^th rebound    Carly Rataushk (has 83)
200^th point      Riley Evans (has 137)
300^th point      Jaylee Albert (has 267)
                 Carly Rataushk (has 238)
600^th point      Cici West (has 553)
600^th rebound    Cici West (has 589)
1,000^th point    Jade Skidmore (has 874*)
                 *all at Walla Walla CC
 
AROUND THE WEST
While Northwest Nazarene and Alaska Anchorage are in a virtual dead heat for the GNAC favorite's role, UC San Diego is more of a clear choice in the California Collegiate Athletic Association. The Tritons received 12 of the 13 first-place votes and 144 points in the voting. A close race for second place is predicted between Cal Poly Pomona (114 points) and Cal State East Bay (111 with the other first-place vote). Not to be overlooked is Chico State (picked fourth with 100 points).
 
In the Pacific West Conference, Azusa Pacific is the favorite to win it all. The defending champion Cougars collected eight of the 12 first-place votes and picked up 139 points. Looming as a serious contender with three first-places and 128 points is Hawaii Pacific. The other first-place vote went to Dominican, which earned 112 points to edge Point Loma Nazarene (110) for the No. 3 spot in the poll.