THE SCHEDULE
Saturday, Jan. 22                Seattle Pacific at Montana State Billings, 2:00 p.m. PST
                                             Alterowitz Gymnasium / Billings, Mont.
                                             Live Webcast        Live stats
 
 
SEATTLE – A stretch of 16 days without a game wasn't part of the plan for the Seattle Pacific Falcons.
 
But in dealing with the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, plans can change.
 
Basketball is back on the calendar for the SPU women this week. Now tied for first place in the Great Northwest Athletic Conference, they'll fly east to tangle with Montana State Billings on Saturday.
 
Tip-off in Alterowitz Gymnasium is at 2:00 p.m. Pacific time.
 
The Falcons (7-7, 3-1 GNAC) last took the court on Jan. 6 when they beat Simon Fraser on an overtime buzzer beater, 66-64. Since then, their home game against Western Washington on Jan. 8 was postponed, as were last week's two road contests at Saint Martin's and Western Oregon.
 
All of those contests will be played in the upcoming weeks.
 
FOLLOW IT LIVE
Saturday's game will have a live a Webcast and live stats. The appropriate links can be found at the top of this story.
 
CATCHING UP ON THE CALENDAR
Because the pandemic has been affecting different teams in different way and at different levels, all 10 of the GNAC schools are behind by at least two games on their respective schedules.
 
SPU now has four games to make up. All four have been rescheduled.
 
The Falcons will play their postponed Alaska Anchorage game on Sunday, Jan. 30, at 2:00 p.m. in Brougham Pavilion. That means those two will square off twice in 24 hours. They play their regularly-scheduled game on Saturday Jan. 29 at 2:00 p.m. in Brougham. The make-up game was one that had been set for Dec. 30 at UAA, but the schools agreed to play it in Seattle.
 
The Western Washington game from Jan. 8 is now scheduled for Tuesday, Feb. 15 at 4:00 p.m. in Brougham. The Jan. 13 road game at Saint Martin's will be played on Tuesday, Feb. 8, at 5:30 p.m. in Lacey, and the Jan. 15 road game at Western Oregon will be played on Monday, Feb. 21 at 5:15 p.m. in Monmouth.
 




SO WHAT'S THE STORY THIS WEEK?
-- Seattle Pacific is on a three-game winning streak, its longest of the season.
-- The last time the Falcons got off to a 3-1 start in GNAC play was 2018-19, when they beat Concordia-Portland, Western Oregon, and Saint Martin's before falling to Montana State Billings.
-- SPU and the Yellowjackets did not meet during last winter's pandemic-shortened season. The last game between them was Feb. 22, 2020 in Seattle, which Billings won, 91-66.
-- Just four weeks earlier in Billings, SPU pulled out a 69-63 victory, thanks in part to 12 points off the bench from Bayley Brennan, as she buried 4 of 4 from 3-point range.
-- Seattle Pacific is 2-5 away from home: 1-3 in true road games, 1-2 on neutral courts.
-- For the first time since Dec. 2 – and for just the third time this season – the Falcons have pushed their scoring average above 60 points, coming into the week at 60.4.
-- Their defense continues to keep teams at bay, with an average of 58.9 points allowed that is No. 54 among the 297 D2 programs.
-- Factored into that is field goal defense, as opponents shoot just 34.1 percent against SPU – the 16th-lowest success rate among those same 297 schools.
-- At 29.7 defensive rebounds per game, the Falcons rank No. 22 nationally.
-- Seattle Pacific and Billings are the two best teams in the GNAC for taking care of the basketball. The Yellowjackets average just 12.9 turnovers per game, and the Falcons 15.9. In fact, MSUB had just 16 turnovers in their win at Anchorage on Monday, against a team that forces an average of 23.7.
-- On the way to their 66-64 overtime victory against Simon Fraser on Jan. 6, the Falcons overcame a pair of 11-point deficits: 26-15 and 28-17, both in the second quarter. That was their largest deficit overcome in a winning effort this winter.
-- Down 28-21 at halftime against Simon, it was the first time this season Seattle Pacific has won when trailing at the break.
-- Senior forward Natalie Hoff has pulled down nine rebounds in each of her last two games, to go along with 18 points at Alaska Fairbanks and 17 against Simon Fraser.
-- With 94 boards already this season, Hoff is just 11 away from setting a single-season best. She had 104 as a sophomore in 2019-20.
-- Head coach Mike Simonson is 2-2 against Montana State Billings, with one home and one road victory.
 
SCOUTING THE MSU BILLINGS YELLOWJACKETS: 10-8, 4-2 GNAC (4th)
All-time series: SPU leads, 30-23. Current series streak: MSUB won 1. Last time: MSUB 91, SPU 66 (Feb. 22, 2020 at Seattle.). Last SPU series win: SPU 69, MSUB 63 (Jan. 23, 2020 at Billings). Yellowjackets on the Web.
Yellowjackets in a nutshell: Montana State Billings is coming off a huge victory on Monday, a 72-48 rout of No. 9-ranked Alaska Anchorage on the Seawolves home floor in a make-up game from Jan. 1. The Yellowjackets were down 15-6 late in the first quarter when they began a 16-0 run spanning the first and second periods to go up 22-15 and never trailed again. Setting the scoring pace is 6-foot-3 senior forward Taryn Shelley, who averages 13.2 points on .479 shooting from the field, and grabs a team-leading 7.4 rebounds per game. Cariann Kunkel, a junior 5-10 forward, averages 12.2 points on .513 shooting and grabs 5.5 rebounds per contest. She drained 8 of 13 from the floor on the way to 24 points at Anchorage, also collecting seven boards. Another threat for Billings is freshman 5-8 guard Kortney Nelson, who averages 6.0 points, 5.2 rebounds, has dished 45 assists and come up with a team-leading 20 steals. She was one rebound shy of a double-double against UAA, with 15 points and nine boards.
 
EVERYBODY INTO THE ACT
With their penchant for sharing the basketball – 62 percent of their 324 field goals this season have been assisted – it should perhaps come as no surprise that seven of the 14 Falcons who have seen playing time have either led or co-led the team in scoring so far.
 
Senior guard / forward Ashley Alter has been the leader by herself in five games and the co-leader (with Kaprice Boston) in one. Senior forward Natalie Hoff and sophomore forward Beth Pettingill have had the most points in two games each and have been the co-leader once (Hoff with Schuyler Berry and Pettingill with Anna Eddy).
 
Junior point guard Bayley Brennan has been the top SPU scorer in two games.
 
NOSE IN A BOOK
Given the number of high academic achievers on the team, it's not surprising that when they're not playing or practicing, the Falcons can be found reading.
 
But sometimes, reading doesn't have to be all about textbooks. It can be for fun.
 
The "Harry Potter" series is often a popular choice. Matter of fact, four Falcons – Anna Eddy, sisters Maya Hoff and Natalie Hoff, and Hailey Marlow – all listed those books as their favorites.
 
Some of the other books that SPU players just couldn't put down:
 
Ashley Alter: "The Host."
Rachel Berg and Bayley Brennan: "Fault in our Stars."
Kayla Brundidge: Any in the "Maximum Ride" series (and she says she read the whole series in two days).
Malia Mastora: "Heaven is for Real."
Beth Pettingill: "The Goose Girl."
 
AROUND THE WEST
And then there were none. While the Falcons didn't get to play last week, Central Washington and undefeated Western Washington did, squaring off in Bellingham last Thursday. The Wildcats scored the first five points of the game, never trailed, and were never tied on the way to a 76-68 victory against the No. 5-ranked Vikings. WWU (10-1, 2-1 GNAC had been the last undefeated team in the entire West Region. Alaska Anchorage (10-2, 3-1) and SPU (7-7, 3-1) are now GNAC co-leaders. UAA, coming off Monday's 72-48 homecourt loss to Montana State Billings, plays host to Western Washington on Thursday night.
 
Keeping pace for the top overall mark in the West is Cal State East Bay (11-1). The Pioneers have won 10 straight game and are the only undefeated team in California Collegiate Athletic Association play, sporting a 6-0 record. Right on their heels in the conference race are Cal State San Marcos (9-2, 7-1 CCAA) and Stanislaus State (10-2, 5-1 CCAA).
 
Also right there is Azusa Pacific at 11-1 overall, undefeated in the Pacific West Conference at 7-0, and riding an eight-game winning streak. Hawaii Hilo is next at 7-2, 4-1 conference, but the Vulcans had their first four games of the new calendar year postponed before finally getting to take the court at home against Academy of Art on Jan. 13 and winning, 66-58. Hilo visits Azusa on Saturday to start a four-games-in-eight-days road trip.
 
AROUND THE GNAC
Click on this link for the latest news, notes, results, and statistics from around the Great Northwest Athletic Conference.
 
UP NEXT
The Falcons play three home games in four days next week to begin the second half of the GNAC calendar. Alaska Fairbanks visits Brougham Pavilion on Thursday, Jan. 27, at 7:30 p.m. in the second half of a doubleheader. Alaska Anchorage come in on Saturday the 29th at 2:00 p.m. for a regular-scheduled game to lead off a doubleheader, then will stay in town overnight and return to Brougham on Sunday the 30th for a make-up game, also at 2:00 p.m.  
 
SPU's men will meet their Alaska counterparts to round out the two twin bills, facing Fairbanks on Jan. 27 at 5:15 p.m. and Anchorage on Jan. 29 at 4:15.
 
 
GNAC STANDINGS
                                                   Conference           Overall
Alaska Anchorage           3-1         10-2
Seattle Pacific            3-1          7-7
Western Washington         2-1         10-1
Montana State Billings     4-2         10-8
Northwest Nazarene         3-2          9-4
Western Oregon             3-2          7-5
Central Washington         2-2          9-4
Saint Martin's             1-3          9-4
Simon Fraser               1-3          5-8
Alaska Fairbanks           0-5          1-9