THE SCHEDULE
Thursday, Dec. 1                 Seattle Pacific at Alaska Fairbanks, 6:15 p.m. PST
                                                The Patty Center / Fairbanks, Alaska
                                                Live Webcast        Live stats
 
Saturday, Dec. 3                  Seattle Pacific at Alaska Anchorage, 6:15 p.m. PST
                                                Alaska Airlines Center / Anchorage, Alaska
                                                Live Webcast        Live stats
 
 
SEATTLE – The Seattle Pacific Falcons are getting accustomed to playing on the road … and accustomed to playing nationally ranked women's basketball teams, too.
 
They'll do more of the same in both regards this week.
 
Coming off a split of their final preseason tournament on Thanksgiving weekend in Denver, SPU will begin the Great Northwest Athletic Conference portion of its schedule this week with a trip to Alaska. The Falcons take on Alaska Fairbanks on Thursday at 6:15 p.m. Pacific time, then tangle with No. 11 Alaska Anchorage on Saturday, also at 6:15.

They'll know they're in Alaska. Thursday's high in Fairbanks is expected to be minus-2. On Saturday in Fairbanks, it'll soar to a balmy 15.
 
These will be Seattle Pacific's only conference contests prior to the holiday break.
 
For the second week in a row, the Falcons split a pair in preseason tournament action, this time at the Regis Thanksgiving Classic. They defeated host Regis last Friday, 66-63, then fell short of No. 21 Colorado School of Mines on Saturday, 65-54.
 
FOLLOW IT LIVE
Both of this week's games will have live Webcasts and live stats. The appropriate links are at the top of this page.
 
A MIRROR IMAGE DOUBLEHEADER
The Falcon women and men will have a chance to see at least a portion of each other's games this week, as both are part of doubleheaders at the same venue on the same night. The SPU men play Fairbanks on Thursday and Anchorage on Saturday, both tipping off at 8:30 p.m. Pacific time.
 
Those will be the first two of eight twin bills this season when the women and men not only share the same venue, but the same opposing school. They'll do likewise when the Alaskas visit Brougham Pavilion to wrap up the regular season in February – Anchorage on Thursday the 23rd, and Fairbanks on Saturday the 25th.
 
The other four will involve Northwest Nazarene and Central Washington. Both Nighthawks squads visit Brougham Pavilion on Thursday, Dec. 29, followed by both Wildcats teams on Saturday the 31st for a New Year's Eve doubleheader. Same thing when SPU visits Ellensburg on Thursday, Jan. 26, and Nampa on Saturday the 28th.
 
There are four other doubleheaders in Brougham Pavilion (Dec. 8, Jan. 21, Feb. 2, and Feb. 4) but each team will face a different school.
 




SO WHAT'S THE STORY THIS WEEK?
-- The Falcons are 17-3 all-time in GNAC openers. That includes 8-3 on the road.
-- Last year, SPU began its conference schedule at home with a 69-65 victory against Central Washington.
-- It wound up with a split on the GNAC's first weekend, losing to Northwest Nazarene, 63-54.
-- The first conference road game last season was New Year's Day at Alaska Fairbanks, The Falcons won, 67-45.
-- Actually, that first road game was supposed to be at Anchorage, but was postponed due to health and safety protocols. The Falcons and Seawolves wound up playing a weekend set in Seattle at the end of January, with the Seawolves winning both.
-- That means Saturday's game in Anchorage will be Seattle Pacific's first trip to the Alaska Airlines Center since Feb. 1, 2020, near the end of the 2019-20 season. The 20-21 GNAC season was canceled because of the pandemic.
-- Through 20 years of conference play, the Falcons have the second-best overall winning percentage of .698 (254-110). Alaska Anchorage is very close behind at .692 (243-108). Western Washington is on top at .747 (269-91). Alaska Fairbanks is 10th at .208 (75-286).
-- Overall since the GNAC began play in 2001-02, Anchorage has the top percentage of .739 (445-157). SPU is third at .699 (417-180).
-- The Falcons wound up playing both Alaska schools three times during 2021-22: twice during the regular season, then again in the GNAC Tournament.
-- They won all three against the Nanooks, capped by a 78-48 victory in the tournament.
-- On the other hand, SPU lost all three to Anchorage, but by a combined total of 17 points: 60-58 in overtime and 69-61 during the regular season, and 57-50 in the tournament.
-- Seattle Pacific guard Anna Eddy went for a then-career high 21 points in the overtime game, which stood until she poured in 23 against Cal State San Marcos in this year's season opener on Nov. 18.
 
SCOUTING THE ALASKA FAIRBANKS NANOOKS: 1-4, 0-0 GNAC
All-time series: SPU leads, 66-16.  Current series streak: SPU won 9.  Last time: SPU 78, UAF 48 (March 2, 2022, GNAC Tournament at Seattle).  Last UAF series win: UAF 63, SPU 61 (Feb, 16, 2017 at Fairbanks). Nanooks on the Web.
Nanooks in a nutshell: After opening the season with four straight losses, Alaska Fairbanks got into the win column by downing Salem (WV), 80-64, on the final day of UAFs North Star Invitational. Emma McKenney, a junior 5-foot-6 guard who already had a 26-point outing in a loss to Colorado Christian, poured in 25 against Salem, and is the leading scorer for the Nanooks at 17.8 points per game, ranking No. 5 in the GNAC. She also is No. 3 on the conference 3-point shooting list at .538 (15 of 26). Sophomore 5-9 guard Destiny Reimers averages 13.8 points per game and hits .543 from the field. Another sharpshooter is sophomore 6-1 forward Ellen Silva, who scores at a 12.4 clip on .558 shooting, the GNAC's third-best mark. Silva also averages 9.4 rebounds per game, No. 4 in the GNAC and had a double-double of 11 points and 14 boards against Salem. Freshman 5-10 forward Kayla Johnson averages 8.2 rebounds, along with 12.0 points. Johnson started the season with a double-double of 26 points and 13 boards in a  72-60 loss to UC Colorado Springs.
 
SCOUTING THE ALASKA ANCHORAGE SEAWOLVES: 5-0, 0-0 GNAC.
All-time series; SPU leads, 41-36.  Current series streak: UAA won 7.  Last time: UAA 57, SPU 50 (March 3, 2022, GNAC Tournament at Seattle).  Last SPU series win: SPU 74, UAA 65 (March 2, 2018, GNAC Tournament semifinals at Anchorage).  Seawolves on the Web.
Seawolves in a nutshell: Alaska Anchorage is off to a 5-0 start, although three of those games have been somewhat close: a nine-pointer at Hawaii Pacific (79-70), then a nine-pointer (77-68) and a seven-pointer (86-79) in back-to-back home games against Biola on Thanksgiving weekend. In the second one against the Eagles, the Seawolves tied their program record with 16 made 3-pointers. Senior 5-foot-9 guard Vishe' Raab has been a force to be reckoned with. She joined the Seawolves this year after playing previously at Augustana (S.D.), a member of the D2 Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference. All Raab has done so far is lead UAA in scoring all five games (co-leader in one), lead in rebounding in four of the five and post a pair of double-doubles. Her 20.4 scoring average is No. 3 in the GNAC; her 9.0 rebounding average is No. 5. Also in double digits for Anchorage is senior 5-8 guard Jahanna Hajdukovich at 10.4 points per game.
 
COLLECTING THE CAROMS
The Falcons have made a nice habit of crashing the boards through their first four games. They have out-rebounded three of their opponents so far: 40-33 against Cal State San Marcos, 44-35 against Azusa Pacific, and 44-28 against Colorado Mines. The plus-16 against Mines in Denver last Saturday matched the plus-16 they had for the entire first weekend in Bellingham.
 
The only game in which SPU didn't finish ahead on the boards was last Friday when Regis had a 37-36 edge. On that day, the Rangers had six rebounds before the Falcons got their first. But from that point, they had a 36-31 advantage the rest of the day.
 
Of those 36, sophomore 5-9 guard Anna Eddy had a career-high 10. That was exactly double her previous high of five. The next day against Colorado Mines, 5-7 redshirt sophomore guard Hunter Beirne pulled down a career-high six, one more than her previous best. Sophomore 6-3 center Schuyler Berry had a career-high 10, her first collegiate double-digit game. One of those was her career 100th.
 
"We talk about how important it is that all five players get a rebound," head coach Mike Simonson said. "Most people always think it's your center – and Schuyler did a great job of boxing out and getting rebounds. But when a guard can get a ton of rebounds, that just shows you the entire team is committed to rebounding, and that was a huge emphasis for us."
 
SAME MILESTONE, DIFFERENT PLAYERS
It's not uncommon to have two players chasing after the same milestone. It is uncommon to have both of them reach it on the same weekend.
 
 

In last Friday's 66-63 victory against Regis on the first day of the Regis Thanksgiving Classic, fifth-year guard / forward Ashley Alter went off for a career-high 29 points. She came into that game with 699. Along with the 16 she tallied on Saturday against Colorado Mines, she starts this week with 744.
 
Fifth-year forward Natalie Hoff reached 700 in the Colorado Mines game. She came into that one needing seven more, and ended up with eight. That gives her 701 to start this week.
 
Hoff is now approaching another milestone, needing 28 more rebounds to reach 500.
 
MILESTONES IN THE MAKING
100th point             Hailey Marlow has 88
500th rebound       Natalie Hoff has 472
 
SIMO SAYS …
Head coach Mike Simonson looks ahead at this weekend's games in Alaska.
 
 

(On opening GNAC play at Fairbanks and Anchorage)
"We played some really good teams (in Colorado), and this type of weekend is a perfect set-up for (this) week. "We played a team on Friday (Regis) that stylistically is probably similar to Fairbanks in some ways. Then we played a team (Colorado Mines) that is stylistically similar to Anchorage. It was a perfect dry run going into conference play."
 
(On the GNAC)
"I truly believe it's the best women's basketball conference in the entire country. We had four teams (in the NCAAs) last year, and I truly believe we'll have four again this year. Western Washington went to the (NCAA) championship game, and they're preseason picked No. 1. Alaska Anchorage is really tough. You have Montana State Billings which brings back almost everybody; they're tough. Central Washington has Sam Bowman, the (GNAC) Preseason Player of the Year. It's a really tough conference."
 
(On SPU's approach to it)
"What I love about us is we're focused on us. We're focused on our system, our team, our culture. There's a lot of confidence brewing here, to the point where I think we're going to surprise some people in our conference; I truly do. It starts with hard-nosed defense and sharing the ball on offense. But we're really excited getting into conference play."
 
AROUND THE WEST
The GNAC still has a pair of undefeated teams heading into the start of conference play. Alaska Anchorage is 5-0, plus has a pair of exhibition wins against D1 schools (UC Riverside and La Salle) in its own Great Alaska Shootout on Nov. 18-19. Western Oregon is 4-0 and did not play on Thanksgiving weekend. Montana State Billings (7-1 overall) tipped off the GNAC schedule on Monday with a 67-61 victory at Alaska Anchorage.
 
Cal State Dominguez Hills has the best record among California Collegiate Athletic Association schools at 4-0. The Toros have not yet begun conference play, but will do so this week at home against Humboldt and Sonoma State. Cal Poly Pomona is 4-1 overall and routed Cal State San Bernardino last Saturday in the CCAA opener, 67-38. Chico State and San Francisco State are both 4-2 overall, and both of them also won their CCAA openers last weekend.
 
Azusa Pacific completed the first three weeks of non-conference play with a 5-2 mark, tops among Pacific West Conference schools. Fresno Pacific is 4-2 and Hawaii Pacific is 3-2. Conference play begins this week, and Azusa is making a NorCal road trip to Holy Names on Thursday and Fresno Pacific on Saturday.

AROUND THE GNAC
Click on this link for a look at this week's GNAC notebook. Click on this link for a look at the latest GNAC statistics.
 
UP NEXT
The Falcons finally get to play at home next week, taking on Lincoln University of Oakland (Calif.) on Thursday, Dec. 8, at 5:15 p.m. in Brougham Pavilion. It will be the first regular-season home game, although the Falcons did beat Pacific Lutheran in an exhibition on Nov. 5. Thursday's contest will be the opener of a doubleheader, followed by the SPU men against Evergreen State at 7:30 p.m.
 
 
GNAC STANDINGS
                                                     GNAC              Overall
Montana State Billings   1-0         7-1
Alaska Anchorage         0-0         5-0
Western Oregon           0-0         4-0
Central Washington       0-0         5-1
Western Washington       0-0         3-1
Northwest Nazarene       0-0         4-2
Seattle Pacific          0-0         2-2
Simon Fraser             0-0         2-2
Saint Martin's           0-0         3-4
Alaska Fairbanks         0-1         1-5