SPU THANKSGIVING TOURNAMENT SCHEDULE
All games at Brougham Pavilion / Seattle.
 
Friday, Nov. 29                     Saint Martin's vs. Colorado Christian,1:00 p.m.
                                      Seattle Pacific vs. Metro State, 3:15 p.m.
                                      Brougham Pavilion (2,650) / Seattle, Wash.
 
Saturday, Nov 30                 Saint Martin's vs. Metro State, 1:00 p.m.
                                      Seattle Pacific vs. Colorado Christian, 3:15 p.m.
                                      Brougham Pavilion / Seattle, Wash.

LIVE WEBCASTS (ALL GAMES)
LIVE STATS (ALL GAMES)


SEATTLE – Refresh. Rejuvenate. Refine.
 
With an unusual November break of 12 days, that's what the players and coaches on the Seattle Pacific women's basketball team have been doing.
 
Now, the Falcons are ready to get back to it, and they'll get to do that at home this weekend in the SPU Thanksgiving Tournament.
 
The two-day gathering is set for Friday and Saturday in Brougham Pavilion. SPU has the 3:15 p.m. game both days, facing Metro State of Denver on Friday and Colorado Christian on Saturday. Saint Martin's, one of Seattle Pacific's stablemates in the Great Northwest Athletic Conference, tips off at 1:00 p.m. both days, with CCU on Friday and Metro on Saturday.
 
Seattle Pacific (1-6) are coming off a split from their own SU West Region Crossover on Nov. 15-16 in Brougham. The Falcons picked up their first win of the year by beating Cal State San Marcos, 72-48. Then, they put together a solid first half against nationally ranked Azusa Pacific, leading 45-40 at the break before the No. 18 Cougars caught up and eventually pulled away to win, 90-70.
 
FOLLOW IT LIVE
All four tournament games will have free live Webcasts and free live stats. Shawn Walli will call the action on Friday, then Sam Paul-Barrette takes the mic for the second day. The appropriate links can be found at the top of this story.
 
DIFFERENT GYM, SAME OPPONENTS
Seattle Pacific saw Colorado Christian and Metro State at Thanksgiving time last year, albeit in Colorado. Instead of a typical preseason tournament setting where four teams gathering, these were separate games played in the hosts' own gyms.
 
The Falcons started out at Colorado Christian in Lakewood, and that day belonged completely to the Cougars as they rolled to a 68-41 victory, thanks in large part to a 25-2 scoring burst during the second quarter.
 
The next day in Denver, SPU had a five-point lead on Metro State with about three minutes left, but the Roadrunners closed on a 10-3 scoring run to eke out a 64-62 win.
 
Friday's game against Metro is the first of two between the teams this year They'll link up again on Saturday, Dec. 21 in Salt Lake City, the non-conference finale for both schools.
 




SO WHAT'S THE STORY THIS WEEK?
-- Last November, Metro State was 0-4 going into its game against SPU. Coming into Friday the Roadrunners once again are 0-4.
-- Colorado Christian was 2-2 last Thanksgiving. The Cougars are 1-3 this year.
-- Both schools are members of the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference,
-- This week's games will count toward Seattle Pacific's West Region record. The RMAC is part of the South Central Region, but is considered a "contiguous conference" since it is right next door to the West Region,  Non-conference games between schools from contiguous conferences factor into both teams' regional records.
-- In their first five games, the Falcons had a total of 31 assists. In their two most recent contests against Cal State San Marcos and Azusa Pacific, they racked up 20 in each game. Prior to that, the high had been seven in the season opener against Tampa on Nov. 1.
 --Sophomore guard Layne Kearns handed out a career-high eight assists against San Marcos, more than double her previous best of three. Haylie Ohta, another sophomore guard, dished a career high-tying five against Azusa.
-- SPU had not led by more than seven points against any of its first five opponents. In the San Marcos game, the Falcons led by as many as 26. In the Azusa contest, they were up by as many as eight.
-- The Seattle Pacific reserves had their best night of the season vs. APU, contributing 33 points, led by Emilia Bishop's career-high 14.on 7-of-14 shooting.
-- Hunter Beirne's 23 points and Madison Rubino's 13 against Cal State San Marcos made them the first Falcons other than Layne Kearns to score in double figures this season. Bishop is now part of that group, as well.
-- The Falcons have multiple blocked shots in five of their seven games: six vs. Dominican, four each vs. Tampa, Cal State Los Angeles, and Cal State Dominguez Hills, and three vs. Cal State San Marcos.
 
SCOUTING THE METRO STATE ROADRUNNERS: 0-4, 0-0 RMAC
All-time series: Metro leads 2-1.  Current series streak: Metro won 2.  Last time: Metro 64 SPU 62 ( (Nov. 25, 2023 at Denver).  Last SPU series win: SPU 77, Metro 74 (Dec. 13, 1986 at Denver).  Roadrunners on the Web.
Roadrunners in a nutshell: Just like SPU, Metro State hasn't played since Nov. 16. Points haven't been easy to come by for the Roadrunners, as their top output through their first four games was in a 74-66 loss to Nebraska-Kearney on Nov. 15. They've had two other games in the 50s and one in the 40s. Mikayla Espinosa, a junior 5-foot-8 guard, averages 12.3 points per game on .346 shooting from the field and led Metro in its two more recent contests, with 18 against Kearney and 17 against Fort Hays State. She also leads the team in steals with 13. In last year's game against the Falcons, Espinosa went for 17 points on 6 of 13, plus eight rebounds. Senior 6-foot forward / center Jackie Pippett chips in 9.3 points per game and is a sharpshooter from the floor at 600 (15 of 25). She is the top Roadrunner on the boards at 5.5 per game, and of her 22 total rebounds, 10 have come at the offensive end.
 
SCOUTING THE COLORADO CHRISTIAN COUGARS: 1-3, 0-0 RMAC
All-time series: Tied, 2-2.  Current series streak: CCU won 1. SPU won 2.  Last time: CCU 68, SPU 41 (Nov. 24, 2023 at Lakewood, Colo.  Last SPU series win: SPU 90, CCU 53 (Nov. 20, 2009 at Seattle).  Cougars on the Web.
Cougars in a nutshell: Colorado Christian also comes into Seattle off a 12-day break. The Cougars picked up their first win on Nov. 15, defeating Missouri Western, 79-70. Maggie Hutka, a junior 6-foot-1 forward, averages almost a double-double at 15.5 points and 9.8 rebounds per game She finds her way to the free throw line a lot, having drained 20 of 25 (The entire rest of the team is 27 of 35) and leads the team with 13 assists. Junior 5-6 guard Victoria Perez adds 10.8 points. She had a game-high 17 last year against the Falcons Senior 6-1 guard Dasiya Jones also comes up big on the boards with an average of 8;0 per game and grabbed 10 in last November's SPU contest.
 
START THE PRESSES!
In newspaper lore, the phrase is "stop the presses" when a big story breaks and has to get onto the pages
 
On the basketball court, Seattle Pacific added a new wrinkle to its game plan two weeks ago by employing a defensive press against Cal State San Marcos and Azusa Pacific.
 
For the most part, it worked. SPU forced San Marcos into 22 turnovers and converted those into 26 points. It forced Azusa into turning over the ball 16 times, although that led to just 12 Falcons points.
 
That's 38 turnovers in two games, accounting for 38 points. Prior to that, the best two-game combination in that statistical area was 32 turnovers / 20 points on Nov. 8-9 against Cal State Los Angeles and Cal State Dominguez Hills.
 
"I love the press – it puts the athletes in a different mind frame," head coach Karen Byers said. "They tend to be a little more aggressive when they're pressing. I actually wanted to take it off at one point during one of our last games, but (the players) asked me not to because they were having so much fun. They're excited about it."
 
BISHOP IS BRINGING IT
Emilia Bishop is already well on the way to her best season as a Falcon – and there's a lot of basketball still to play.
 

Through the first seven games, the 6-foot-3 junior has been making her presence felt in the post. She has racked up 45 points, including her career-high 14 in the Azusa Pacific game, an average of 6.4 per game. She has pulled down 27 rebounds, with more than half of those (16) at the offensive end.
 
After a slow start, Bishop's shooting also has picked up. She has hit 50 percent (13 of 26) in the last three games. She's now at.383 for the season (18 of 47).
 
Last year through seven games, Bishop had just 12 points on 5-of-13 shooting, plus 24 rebounds (nine offensive) in 23 games totaling 220 minutes. She already has played 85 minutes this season.
 
So far, Bishop also is the only SPU player who's perfect at the free throw line (9 of 9). That's as many makes as she had all of last season, when she finished 9 of 21
 
COACH KAREN BYERS SAYS …
(On the 12-day break)
"We definitely took some days off and rested and had some fun. We went to Top Golf and swung the club a little bit and it was just kind of a less-stressed week. Then we refine some things that we needed to work on. This week we're feeling good, our energy is back, and we're ready to take on the two games that we have."
 
 

(On takeaways from the San Marcos and Azusa games)
"Our identity is really starting to develop. We're starting to see kind of the evolution of our team and what we can do and how fast we can run and what ways we can score and run our offense. It's become a more clear picture of what we can do."
 
(On Metro State and Colorado Christiam)
"Metro was tough for us last year. They love to drive the ball, and we're going to have dribble handoffs and ball screens coming at us from every direction. They'll be a tough one to handle. Colorado Christian also got us last year. It's going to be two games that we struggled with last year, so let's see how we can do this year with them."
 
FALCONS REPLAY
--Hunter Beirne poured in 23 points on 10-of-14 accuracy as the Falcons broke into the win column with a 72-48 rout of Cal State San Marcos on the first night of the SPU West Region Crossover women's basketball tournament on. Nov. 15.

After putting the No. 18 Azusa Pacific Cougars back on their heels for much of the second quarter and taking a five-point lead into halftime, SPU saw the visitors from California go on a 19-0 scoring run during a 7¼-minute span bridging the third and fourth quarters, enough to carry them to a 90-70 victory on the final night of the SPU Crossover.
 
AROUND THE WEST
Central Washington had last week off and remains the only undefeated team in the GNAC with a 4-0 record. Montana State Billings (7-1) pushed its early-season win streak to six by downing Minot State, 65-51. Alaska Anchorage and Simon Fraser are both at 6-1. The Seawolves played a pair of exhibition games against Division I teams in Anchorage, falling to Troy in overtime,80-73, then defeating Vermont, 68-52. The Catamounts reached the WNIT Fab 4 last season.
 
Cal State Dominguez Hills is still the lone unbeaten team in the California Collegiate Athletic Association – and now is also the only unbeaten team in conference play. The Toros opened their CCAA schedule on Sunday with a 75-52 victory at Cal State Los Angeles. Cal Poly Pomona (4-1) is the only other CCAA team with a multiple-game win streak going, having won four straight after dropping its opener. Chico State and Cal State L.A. are also 4=1.
 
Hawaii Pacific has played just two games, but has won both and is the Pacific West Conference's only perfect team. The only other teams with winning records are Academy of Art and Azusa Pacific, both 5-1 after both started out at 5-0. Former SPU head coach Mike Simonson, now the head coach at Biola, will get a bit of a homecoming this week. The Eagles are in Ellensburg at the CWU Thanksgiving Tournament. They'll face Western Washington on Friday and host Central Washington on Saturday.
 
UP NEXT
The Falcons open their GNAC schedule next week with a road trip to Simon Fraser and Western Washington. They are in Burnaby, B.C. on Thursday for at 5:15 p.m. tip-off, and visit Bellingham on Saturday, tipping off at 7:00 p.m.
 
 
GNAC STANDINGS
                                                      GNAC     Overall
Central Washington        0-0     4-0
Montana State Billings    0-0     7-1
Alaska Anchorage          0-0     6-1
Simon Fraser              0-0     6-1
Saint Martin's            0-0     4-1
Alaska Fairbanks          0-0     5-2
Northwest Nazarene        0-0     4-2
Western Oregon            0-0     2-2
Western Washington        0-0     2-3
Seattle Pacific           0-0     1-6


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