SATURDAY, MARCH 6
Saint Martin's at Seattle Pacific, 1:00 p.m. PST
Iron Coaching Court at Brougham Pavilion / Seattle, Wash.
 
• Webcast: https://www.youtube.com/user/SPUsports
• LiveStats: www.sidearmstats.com/spu/mbball
 
Seattle Pacific concludes its 13-game regular season with a single contest this week. The Falcons (9-3), winners of their last four games, host Saint Martin's on Saturday, March 6. Tip-off is 1 p.m. on Iron Coaching Court at Brougham Pavilion. The Saint's won the last matchup, 80-66 on Feb. 12 in Seattle, halting a four-game losing streak versus SPU.
 
 

Player of the Week
Sharif Khan, who hit four 3-pointers in each game and shot 62 percent behind the arc to lead SPU to a pair of home victories over 13th-ranked Northwest Nazarene, was named the GNAC Player of the Week on Monday. Khan combined for 30 points, eight rebounds and three steals in the two wins, making 8 of 13 treys while shooting 53 percent overall from the floor. The 6-foot-1 senior guard scored 12 points, hitting 4 of 6 treys, in Friday's (Feb. 26) 89-79 triumph that halted the Nighthawks eight-game winning streak. In Saturday's (Feb. 27) 83-68 decision that completed the sweep of NNU, Khan replicated that four-trey output. He want 4-for-7 en route to a career-high 18-point performance. Khan leads the Falcons in a trio of statistical categories this season with 25 treys, 19 steals and eight blocked shots. He prepped at Bellevue (Wash.) High School.
 
Falcons Fast Facts
• SPU, which used the same starting lineup every game, was victorious in nine of its last 10 outings
 
• Divant'e Moffitt ranks No. 22 nationally in assists (5.4 apg) and posted a pair of 30-point performances
 
• SPU, the 2020 NCAA D-II leader (80.5%), ranks No. 1 in free throw accuracy at 84.1% (217 of 258)
 
• The Falcons converted 25-of-26 free throws on Jan. 21 and 30-of-33 on Feb. 19 at Central Washington
 
• Three Falcons were GNAC Player of the Week: Kelton Samore (Jan. 25), Harry Cavell (Feb. 1) & Sharif Khan (Mar. 1)
 
• Harry Cavell has collected 518 career rebounds to become SPU's 16th 500-rebound player
 
• Cavell has 1,128 career points to rank No. 22 among all-time Falcons. He reached 1,000 on Jan. 27
 
• Cavell is the 11th player in SPU men's basketball history to compile both 1,000 points and 500 rebounds
 
• Ten of the 12 Falcons that played this season have established a career-high game scoring total
 
• SPU has a 6-0 record when leading at halftime and is 6-1 in games it was ahead with 5:00 remaining
 
• Syon Blackmon produced three straight double-digit games capped by a career-high 18 on Feb. 26
 
SPU's Shortest Season
At 13 games, this will be the shortest season in Seattle Pacific's 78-year men's basketball history. Just once before have the Falcons played less than 20 games, and that was in 1945-46 when they competed 18 times (3-15). With six schools opting out this year, the GNAC announced Dec. 17 that there would not be a conference season and the Falcons fended for themselves in finding opponents.
 
Notable
Six players debuted for SPU this year, all of them coming off the bench. Chris Penner and Clayton Whitman are red-shirt freshmen from last year's roster. The other four are newcomers to the team; Syon Blackmon, Kobe Elsner, Payton Richardson and Kelton Samore. The five-man starting lineup of Harry Cavell, Sharif Khan, Divant'e Moffitt, Zack Paulsen and Mehdi El Mardi, all returning players, scored 727 of the team's 968 points (75%).
 
2020 Review
Seattle Pacific registered a 22-7 record in 2020, including a 14-game winning streak that was the program's second longest, to qualify for the NCAA Tournament that was cancelled March 12 due to the pandemic. SPU won the league regular-season title with an 18-2 mark. Grant Leep was the 2020 GNAC Coach of the Year, Shaw Anderson was the Freshman of the Year and Harry Cavell shared Defensive Player of the Year.
 
Scouting Saint Martin's (2-9)
> The Saints are led by four double-digit scorers in Alex Schumacher (16.1 ppg), Tyke Thompson (11.2), Ty Velasquez (10.3) and Demonte Malloy (10.4).
 
> Aaron Landon is in his second season after coaching SMU to a 6-23 record in 2020 with a 4-16 GNAC mark.
 
> The Falcons own a 101-42 series lead despite losing eight of the last 13 matchups. They had a four-game win streak in the series snapped by an 80-66 home loss to SMU on Feb. 12.
 
> The Saints ended SPU's 2019 season with a 67-63 triumph on March 16 in San Diego, Calif. in the NCAA Division II West Regional semifinal.

 

Dynamic Divant'e
Point guard Divant'e Moffitt leads SPU with 17.2 points and 5.4 assists per game. That assist figure ranks 22nd nationally among NCAA Division II players. He notched two 30-point performances in 2021, doubling his career total to four. Moffitt erupted for 32 points versus Lewis-Clark State (Jan. 28) and 30 against Whitworth (Jan. 13). He was honored as a unanimous first-team All-GNAC selection in 2020. His 17.1-point average ranked fourth in the conference in 2020 and his 3.4 assists were seventh. Moffitt poured in a career-high 33 points at Alaska Fairbanks on Jan. 30, 2020. He reached double-digits 24 times last season, nine of them 20-plus point games.

Coach Leep
The GNAC's 2020 Coach of the Year Grant Leep, 41, is in his fifth season directing the SPU men's basketball program after seven years as an assistant on the Falcons staff. He has an 82-45 career record. Leep coached the 2020 team to a 22-7 record that featured a 14-game winning streak. His Falcons won the GNAC regular-season championship and qualified for the cancelled NCAA West Regional as the No. 5 seed. 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.