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THURSDAY, DECEMBER 5
Seattle Pacific at Central Washington, 7:30 p.m. PST
Nicholson Pavilion / Ellensburg, Wash.
 
SATURDAY, DECEMBER 7
Seattle Pacific at Northwest Nazarene, 6:30 p.m. PST (7:30 MST)
Johnson Sports Center / Nampa, Idaho
 
• Webcast & LiveStats for both road games:  http://portal.stretchinternet.com/spu/
 
FRIDAY, DECEMBER 20
Puget Sound at Seattle Pacific, 7:00 p.m. PST
Iron Coach Court at Brougham Pavilion / Seattle, Wash.
 
• Webcast:  https://www.youtube.com/user/SPUsports
• LiveStats:  www.sidearmstats.com/spu/mbball
• Tickets:  http://siteline.vendini.com/site/spufalcons.com
 
A six-game road trip ends and Great Northwest Athletic Conference play begins this week. Seattle Pacific (3-4) travels to Ellensburg on Thursday, Dec. 5 to open league action at Central Washington (5-1). Tip-off is 7:30 p.m. Pacific Time at Nicholson Pavilion. The Wildcats lost their last five encounters with SPU. On Saturday, Dec. 7 the Falcons visit Nampa, Idaho for a 6:30 p.m. PST (7:30 p.m. MST) clash with Northwest Nazarene (3-2). That is a rematch of last year's league semifinal game won 89-81 by SPU en route to its fourth GNAC Tournament title. The Falcons will have been on the road for over a month between their Nov. 12 game and the next home game, Dec. 20 versus Puget Sound.
 
Player of the Week
Divant'e Moffitt, who compiled 43 points, 10 assists, nine rebounds and five steals in a pair of road wins, was named the GNAC Player of the Week on Monday. The sophomore point guard was extremely accurate in both games, shooting 64 percent from the field (14 of 22) while converting 13 of 14 free throws. Moffitt erupted for a career-high 29 points, including the Falcons final eight, to fuel a 96-89 victory at Point Loma on Saturday. He distributed a career-best eight assists and grabbed seven rebounds against the defending West Region champions while hitting 8 of 14 shots from the field and 11 of 12 free throws. In a 75-55 win at Sonoma State on Nov. 26, Moffitt made 6 of 8 shots and both of his free throws en route to a 14-point performance. He collected three steals versus the Seawolves. The product of Spanaway Lake (Wash.) High School currently leads SPU in scoring (13.1 points per game), assists (16) and steals (8).
 
DIVANT'E MOFFITT INTERVIEW

Notable
After not having a 20-point scorer in the first five games, Shaw Anderson tallied 20 at Sonoma (Nov. 26) and Divant'e Moffit 29 at Point Loma (Nov. 30) ... A balanced attack featured six different Falcons leading the team in scoring in at least one game this season (ties included). There have been five different assist leaders and four in rebounds.
 
Youth Being Served
Only six of the 14 players on the roster had ever before worn an SPU uniform and just two of them were primary starters last season (Harry Cavell, Gavin Long). The rotation of 12 players utilized so far includes seven underclassmen. Five of those are freshmen, with red-shirt frosh Jacob Medjo and Filip Fullerton joined by true freshmen Shaw Anderson, Jacob Parola and Zack Paulsen. A pair of sophomores, Divant'e Moffitt and Braden Olsen, share the point-guard duties. The infusion of newcomers also features starting center Mehdi El Mardi, a junior transfer from Trevecca Nazarene, and incoming freshmen Chris Penner and Clayton Whitman.
 
Scouting Central Washington (5-1, 0-0 GNAC)
> The Wildcats bring a four-game winning streak into Thursday's game.
 
> A trio of double-digit scorers lead the CWU offense led by the 13.2 points per game of Xavier Smith. Jeryn Lucas averages 11.0 points, Tariq Woody 10.0 and Matt Poquette 10.2 along with a team-leading 6.2 rebounds per contest.
 
> Brandon Rinta is in his second year as Central's head coach after spending seven seasons at Lewis-Clark State. The 2001 CWU grad replaced Greg Sparling.
 
> CWU leads the all-time series 74-58 despite losing 16 of the last 20 meetings. SPU was victorious in the last five encounters, including a 97-82 victory on Dec. 1, 2018 in Seattle and 74-62 decision Feb. 28, 2019 in Ellensburg in the most recent meeting.
 
Scouting Northwest Nazarene (3-2, 0-0 GNAC)
> Located in Nampa, Idaho, NNU recently changed its nickname to Nighthawks (previously was Crusaders). Paul Rush is in his third season as head coach after serving three years as an assistant.
 
> After starting the season with three straight wins, NNU lost its last two games, 90-69 at College of Idaho and 74-70 at Cal State L.A.
 
> A trio of double-figure scorers lead the attack as Ezekiel Alley averages 16.0 points per game, George Reidy 13.2 and Adalberto Diaz 11.2.
 
> The Falcons lead the series 60-26, but had lost three straight games versus NNU before an 87-82 victory on Mar. 2, 2019 in Nampa. The Nighthawks were 87-86 victors in last season's first matchup, on Nov. 19 in Seattle. SPU won the rubber match, an 89-81 decision on Mar. 8 in the semifinal round of the 2019 GNAC Tournament.
 
Scouting Puget Sound (3-3, 0-0 Northwest Conference)
> The Loggers are an NCAA Division III competitor coached by Aubrey Shelton.
 
> UPS (3-3) split its first three game paced by Stellan Roberts, a 6-foot-5 senior forward, who averaged 22.7 points and 7.5 rebounds in that span.
 
> The Loggers lead the all-time series 50-35 despite losing the last four encounters. The teams haven't met since Dec. 30, 2004 when SPU was a 122-111 victor in Seattle.

 

Gavin the Great
SPU senior Gavin Long averages 11.1 points and 5.0 rebounds per game. He is a two-time All-GNAC selection, earning second-team honors last year after honorable mention acclaim in 2019. The 6-foot-5 guard led the Falcons with a 14.4-point scoring average last year. In the 2019 GNAC Tournament championship game he tallied 17 points, in the process becoming the 37th player in school history to reach the 1,000-point career milestone. With 1,083 career points, Long currently ranks No. 29 among all-time Falcons scorers. He registered a career-high 27-point effort against Northwest Nazarene in the GNAC Tournament semifinal on Mar. 8, 2019.
 

2020 Season Preview
Two starters return from the Seattle Pacific team that posted a 22-7 record in 2019, won the GNAC Tournament and advanced to the NCAA West Regional semifinal. Headlining the list of returnees is leading scorer Gavin Long. The 6-foot-5 senior guard averaged 14.4 points en route to second-team All-GNAC honors. Junior guard Harry Cavell is also back after averaging 10.2 points as a starter in 2019. A quartet of returning guards bolsters that starting tandem, a group that includes Gabe Colosimo, Sharif Khan, Divant'e Moffitt and Braden Olsen. Graduation hit the frontcourt hard, but capable reinforcements are prepared to fill the void. The Falcons have two transfers eligible at the center position, Filip Fullerton from Portland State and Mehdi El Mardi from Trevecca Nazarene. A fantastic five-man freshman class is brimming with talent and only lacks experience in the college game. All five were standouts in the Washington state prep ranks. The frosh class is comprised of Shaw Anderson (Kelso HS), Jacob Parola (Gonzaga Prep HS), Zack Paulsen (Curtis HS), Chris Penner (Capital HS) and Clayton Whitman (Lynden HS).

Court Report
Senior Gavin Long and junior Harry Cavell were named to the 15-man Preseason All-Great Northwest Athletic Conference team and the Falcons were picked second in the coaches preseason poll ... SPU was ranked No. 23 in the final 2019 coaches poll, its first national recognition since a No. 25 ranking on Feb. 16, 2016.
 
Coach Leep
Grant Leep, 40, begins his fourth season directing the SPU men's basketball program after seven years as an assistant on the Falcons staff. He has a 54-39 career record. Leep coached the 2019 team to a 22-7 record that featured a late 13-game winning streak. His Falcons won the GNAC Tournament and advanced to the West Regional semifinal of the NCAA Division II Tournament. Leep has strong basketball ties throughout the Northwest as an All-America player at Mount Vernon (Wash.) High School before lettering four years at Washington. Leep still owns the Huskies 3-point accuracy records for a season (52.7% in 2002) and career (42.9%). His coaching resumé includes stops at Eastern Washington and a pair of community colleges. SPU had a 165-51 (.764) record during his time as an assistant.
 
GNAC Tournament
SPU captured its fourth GNAC Tournament title last year, adding a 2019 trophy to the display that includes hardware from three consecutive seasons between 2013-15. The conference determines its automatic qualifier for the NCAA Division II Tournament with a post-season playoff. The top-six finishers in the regular-season standings will participate in the GNAC Tournament. All of the conference's 2020 men's and women's playoff games will be contested at SPU's Brougham Pavilion. The top-two seeds receive a first-round bye while the lower seeds meet on March 5. The semifinals are set for March 6 and the championship game is March 7.
 
2019 Season Review
The Falcons returned to the NCAA Division II Tournament after a two-year absence. They reeled off 13 consecutive victories en route to a GNAC Tournament championship and appearance in the NCAA West Regional semifinal. SPU's final record of 22-7 included a 16-4 league ledger that was good for second place in the GNAC standings. Coleman Wooten earned first-team All-GNAC honors, Gavin Long was a second-teamer and Nikhil Lizotte garnered honorable mention acclaim.
 
Falcons Fast Fact
The Falcons fashioned a 13-game win streak from Jan. 31 to Mar. 15, 2019 that was their longest since a school-record stretch of 15 straight victories in 2002. Last year's win streak was stopped by a 67-63 loss to Saint Martin's in the NCAA West Region semifinal that ended the Falcons season.
 
Postseason Pursuit
SPU seeks to return to the NCAA Division II Tournament for the second straight season after a two-year absence in 2017 and 2018. Prior to that, the Falcons forged a run of 12 straight playoff berths, from 2005-2016, that was the longest active streak among Division II men's basketball teams. SPU advanced to the national semifinals in both 2000 and 2006, placing third both times.