• FINAL STATS (html)

BILLINGS, Mont. – The Falcons missed the cut for the GNAC Tournament last season. Coleman Wooten has been slashing through recent opponents to make sure that doesn't happen again.
 
Wooten tallied 19 of his season-high 26 points during the first half Saturday as the Seattle Pacific men went wire-to-wire for a 74-60 victory over Montana State Billings in their final Great Northwest Athletic Conference men's basketball road game.
 
He hit 11 of 17 shots from the field en route to the highest scoring game of the season by a Falcon, matching the 26-point output that teammate Gavin Long produced at Simon Fraser on Jan. 25.
 
Wooten surpassed the 20-point plateau in each of the last three games, averaging 24 points during that span. He had 24 points in last Saturday's win at Concordia and 22 in an 80-76 overtime loss at Saint Martin's on Tuesday.
 
"It's so big," Coach Grant Leep said of Wooten's current hot streak. "Almost more impressive is the way he's doing it. We're not really running much for him. He's just been the recipient of a lot of dump-down passes that he's finishing.
 
"He's hard to cover. Coleman gets the ball in the perimeter and he can drive by his matchup. He's really creating some matchup problems for our opponents and he's just doing a really good job of taking the right shots and finishing his plays."
 
The 6-foot-5 junior forward also grabbed seven rebounds Saturday, tying for team-high honors with Trey Miller. Wooten's career-high game of 35 points came on Jan. 17, 2017. He is a product of Tahoma High School in Maple Valley, Wash.
 
SPU (15-10) improved its league record to 10-8 and will enter the final week of conference play in no worse than fifth place with the top-six earning berths to the GNAC Tournament, March 1-3 in Anchorage, Alaska.
 
The Falcons will either remain alone in fifth or move into a fourth-place tie if Central Washington loses at home tonight against league-leading Western Oregon. WOU, second-place Western Washington and third-place Saint Martin's have already secured their spots in the conference playoffs.
 
"Last year we needed a lot of help for things to go our way. This year we're just more in control of what our destiny is," Leep said. "We just need to continue to play how we're capable and to do the things that we've done to get us to this point."
 
The SPU men conclude the regular season at home next week with two 7:30 p.m. games in Brougham Pavilion against a pair of teams still harboring their own GNAC Tournament aspirations. They host Central Washington on Thursday and Northwest Nazarene on Saturday.
 
Long scored 13 points and Nathan Streufert added 10 for the Falcons at MSUB's Alterowitz Gymnasium.

 

Gabe Colosimo distributed a career-high 10 assists. That was the first double-digit assist performance by an SPU player since Bryce Leavitt dished 12 on Nov. 14, 2015.
 
Colosimo utilized his red-shirt year while being sidelined all last season with an injury. The sophomore point guard assumed the starting playmaker role early this season and has started 16 games since then.
 
"Gabe has such a good understanding of what we're trying to do on offense," Leep described. "At that position especially, when you know what our goal is on a set or what the reads are in our offense, it just makes it so good that he can handle those plays and make those plays.
 
"The growth that he's showing as a point guard it's just awesome. He shoots the three so well, he does a great job of getting into the paint and gives us some different looks that you have to cover. Gabe puts pressure on the defense all the time."
 
The Yellowjackets (13-16) dropped to 5-13 in GNAC play. They were led by the 15 points of Kobe Terashima. Zharon Richmond added 14 points and Zack Rollins 12.
 
SPU shot 53 percent for the game (27 of 51) while holding Billings at 36 percent (22 of 61).
 
To start the game, the Falcons drained their first six shots from the field, half of them by Wooten, to build a 13-6 lead. They didn't miss until six minutes had expired and Harry Cavell put up an errant jumper.
 
Midway through the period, Billings went scoreless for a stretch of 3-minutes, 25-seconds to enable the visitors to reel off nine unanswered points. Treys by Nikhil Lizotte and Wooten sparked a spree that provided a 30-14 advantage.
 
A jumper by MSUB's Terashima with four seconds showing on the clock set the halftime score at 38-23 in favor of the Falcons. That margin grew to as many as 21 points in the second half before Billings closed the deficit and netted the game's final eight points.
 
SPU held the Yellowjackets to 26-percent shooting (9 of 35) during the first half while countering with stellar 67-percent accuracy (16 of 25). MSUB missed all nine of its 3-point tries before intermission and the Falcons were 4-for-6 beyond the arc.
 
A year ago, heading into the last week of the season the Falcons were still in GNAC Tournament contention, but were on the outside looking for help from other teams. That help never arrived and they failed to participate in the league playoffs for the first time.
 
Seattle Pacific needs only to help itself this year to secure a GNAC invitation.
 
"These are guys that went through a tough season a year ago, but they learned from it and they got better for it," said Leep.
 
"Now we're able to finish some of those close games that we were unable to a year ago. We're able to go out and play like we did today where we jump out on them early and do a really good job of handling some of the changing defenses and things that they did."
 
 
NCAA MEN'S BASKETBALL
Saturday, Feb. 17, 2018
Alterowitz Gymnasium / Billings, Mont.
 
Seattle Pacific 74, at Montana State Billings 60
 
SEATTLE PACIFIC (15-10, 10-8 GNAC)
Wooten 11-17 3-5 26, Streufert 5-6 0-0 10, Cavell 1-4 2-2 4, Colosimo 2-8 0-0 6, Long 4-5 4-4 13, Eisenhower 1-1 3-3 6, Lizotte 2-5 0-0 6, Miller 1-3 1-2 3, Poulsen 0-1 0-0 0, Van Dyken 0-1 0-0 0. Totals 27-51 13-16 74.
 
MONTANA STATE BILLINGS (13-16, 5-13 GNAC)
Richmond 5-12 3-3 14, Rollins 4-12 4-4 12, Terashima 6-12 3-5 15, Denham 3-10 0-0 7, Abdul 2-9 2-2 6, Jeuschede 2-3 0-0 6, Perry,Jordan 0-2 0-0 0, Tall 0-1 0-0 0, Lessinger 0-0 0-0 0. Totals 22-61 12-14 60.

Seattle Pacific...............   38   36   -   74
Montana State Billings........   23   37   -   60

3-point goals--SPU 7-16 (Lizotte 2-3, Colosimo 2-5, Wooten 1-5, Eisenhower 1-1, Long 1-1, Cavell 0-1), MSUB 4-17 (Jeuschede 2-3, Richmond 1-4, Denham 1-4, Abdul 0-1, Rollins 0-4, Terashima 0-1). Fouled out--SPU-None, MSUB-None. Rebounds--SPU 31 (Wooten, Miller 7), MSUB 34 (Abdul, Denham 7). Assists--SPU 19 (Colosimo 10), MSUB 8 (Terashima 4). Total fouls--SPU 19, MSUB 14. Technical fouls--SPU-None, MSUB-None. A-312.
 
 
Next SPU Men's Basketball Game
Central Washington at Seattle Pacific
Thursday, Feb. 22, 7:30 p.m. PST
Brougham Pavilion / Seattle, Wash.