By MARK MOSCHETTI
Seattle Pacific Sports Information

SEATTLE – No doubt about it: There are basketball sharpshooters out there who can really dial it up from downtown. Just give 'em the ball, put 'em behind the arc, and watch 'em drain 3-point daggers all night long.
 
Then there's Seattle Pacific senior sharpshooter Maui Sze. When he dials it up from downtown …
 
… his daggers sometimes seem to come from a different area code.
 
"Maui Sze hits the 4-2-5 from the 2-0-6!" Falcons public address announcer Mark Aucutt bellowed into his Brougham Pavilion microphone one evening when Sze nailed nothing but net from NBA range.
 
 

In his two years with SPU, the 5-foot-10 dynamo from nearby Roosevelt High School by way of Bellevue College has brought spot-on shooting, pinpoint passing, and a certain swagger to a team that once again is bound for postseason play.
 
"It's funny – it's kind of a blessing and a curse," said Sze – pronounced just like the last letter of the alphabet. "I bring all this swagger and energy and all these things. Some days, I'll be at practice and Coach will say, 'You're missing your juice.' And I'll look and I'll say, 'I am missing my juice – I've gotta find it.'
 
"But I love it. I've kind of asked for all of it,-- captain and leader of this team," Sze added. "Bringing that swagger and helping us build our identity, that's what I do."
 
Sze and the Falcons are off to Ellensburg for today's start of the Great Northwest Athletic Conference Tournament inside Central Washington's Nicholson Arena. And they couldn't have drawn a more daunting task for their first-round contest.
 
Seeded No. 5 for the six-team tourney, SPU must tangle with the host Wildcats, who are the No. 4 seed and are likely to have the added benefit of a jam-packed gym when the game tips off at 7:30 p.m.
 
SPU and Central split their regular-season series: 73-66 for the Wildcats in Ellensburg on Jan. 6, and 77-75 for the Falcons in Seattle on Feb. 1. In that second game, the Falcons wiped out a pair of 10-point deficits and won it on Shaw Anderson's last-second put-back lay-up.
 
"I really love this time of year," Sze said. "I feel like I play my best basketball toward the end of the season when the lights are brightest, and I know (Thursday) night is going to be probably the biggest game I've ever played, especially in college. There'll be lots of fans, lots of lights, and everyone wants a spot in the NCAA Tournament.
 
"I feel like I'm ready and hopefully, we get the win, for sure"
 
INTO THE WILDCATS' DEN
Central's homecourt advantage notwithstanding, Sze sees no reason why Seattle Pacific can't be the last one standing when it's all done on Saturday night. The tournament winner gets the conference's automatic berth into the West Regionals. Everyone else must hope for a at-large bid.
 
Of the six teams that qualified for the GNAC tourney, the Falcons (17-14, 10-8 GNAC) come in with longest current winning streak of four in a row. The second of those four straight was a 91-80 Senior Day victory against regular-season champion and No. 1 tournament seed Montana State Billings. Seattle Pacific had 16 makes from 3-point range that day (two of them by Sze).
 
Then last weekend, SPU went to Alaska to conclude the regular season. That is a physically and mentally tough trip, and coming home with a split often feels like it was a good weekend. But the Falcons secured a sweep, 65-64 at Anchorage and 62-56 at Fairbanks.
 
"I'm feeling really good, really confident," Sze said. "We've got a four-game winning streak going right now, and we just doubled our road (win) total in Alaska. That's the hardest road trip, and we walked out of there with two wins when we needed at least one of them.
 
"We took a playoff mentality into that game Saturday in Fairbanks, knowing that if we won, we'd be the No. 5 seed," he continued. "It was definitely a tough game and an ugly game, but we found a way to win."

 

IN CASE YOU DIDN'T NOTICE: IT'S A DOUBLE GRAND
Long before Sze scored his 1,000th college point, reaching that milestone on Feb. 17 during an 82-69 victory against Western Oregon in Brougham Pavilion, he topped 1,000 points as a high schooler at Roosevelt.

But coming out of high school, he had no offers, so headed across Lake Washington to Bellevue College.
 
In two seasons there, he was named the Northwest Athletic Conference (NWAC) North Division Freshman of the Year and 1st team All-NWAC North in 2021. Then in 2022, he helped the Bulldogs go 22-8 on the way to a second-place finish in the NWAC Tournament. He was named to the All-Tournament team.
 
 

"In a lot of ways, he was always one of these guys through his career who was overlooked a little bit," SPU interim head coach Keffrey Fazio said. "It's a credit to him to be here and be playing at the level he plays at and being such a big part of our success."
 
Sze acknowledged that being overlooked is one of the things that still motivates him … and contributes at least somewhat to his swagger.
 
"It's definitely one of the things that drives me," he said. "Even people close to me have told me, 'Maybe this (basketball) isn't the right thing for you' That definitely puts more fuel in the fire. Every time I step on the court, everyone kind of looks at me like, 'Is that the starting point guard for SPU?'
 
"I always have a chip on my shoulder and I try to bring that fire every time I step on the court, for sure."
 
 

SMART ... VER-R-R-Y SMART
Aside from his talent and work ethic, Sze brings a level of intelligence to the gym that leads Fazio to call him "probably the smartest kid I've ever coached.

"He has a complete understanding at all times of what the defense is trying to do and what we're trying to do on offense to combat that," Fazio said. "That has always been his big thing. Honestly, that's why he has been able to be successful at that level is because of his understanding and his smart play."
 
In fact, if you ask Sze what constitutes a good game for him, that's the first thing that comes to mine.
 
"Points can be a good indication sometimes, because that means I'm making shots," he said. (Sze is averaging 6.2 points on .465 shooting and .438 from downtown). "Assists can be good, too. (He has a team-leading 84, an average of 3.8.) "But I really think from a floor general standpoint, that's where I feel like I make my impact. So if my turnover count is low and we're shooting at a high percentage, that means we're getting a lot of good looks and I'm kind of getting in the and making plays happen."
 
Some observers would go so far to say that he has eyes in the back of his head "because I can see a play before it happens," Sze said. "I can work on all the ball handling, all the passing, but there are some things that just feel like they're God-gifted. I see things happen before anyone else sees."
 
BASKET BY ANDERSON, ASSIST FROM SZE
Of course, you can't talk about the Falcons without talking about Shaw Anderson. Last Saturday in Fairbanks, the senior forward became Seattle Pacific's all-time leading scorer, pushing his career total to 1,959 career points. That broke the old record of 1,948 set from 1955-58 by the late Loren Anderson – a standard that stood for 66 years.

 

"It's really special with Shaw. He's the ultimate teammate and roommate," Sze said. (The two of them, along with teammate Kobe Elsner, share an apartment.) "We've built relationships on and off the court. We don't even have to say anything to each other – we know what we have to do. I know places he wants the ball, and he knows places I want the ball. We do a really good job of attacking the defense and talking game plans before games."
 
Anderson agreed that he and Sze clearly click.
 
 

"We have a great little two-man pick-and-roll going on," he said. "He has been great, especially for me, because I'm the big in the pick-and-roll. He probably has more assists to me than anyone else I can think of. (Sze didn't get the assist on the record-breaking basket, but nearly one third of his 84 helpers this season (27) have gone to Anderson, along with 19 last season.)
 
"I definitely appreciate all that he has helped me with," Anderson said. "He's a great floor general on the and off the court. He keeps everyone in order."

Fazio credits Sze for helping Anderson raising his game – and for helping the other Falcons raising their games, as well.
 
"Maui was one of the guys who picked on Shaw in a way that was able to kind of raise Shaw's level of play and his expectations for himself," Fazio said. "You don't get to do that unless you're somebody who has earned the respect to do that. It's that understanding and intelligence again. The things that Maui says, guys can't say anything back – because he's right. He knows how to push each guy in his own way that's receptible."
 
Count senior guard Kobe Elsner as one of Sze's biggest fans.
 
"He has a great basketball IQ, the way he sees the floor as the point guard and sees us when we're playing with him," Elsner said. "He makes the game easy. He's one of those players who elevates everyone's game by getting them involved and making them feel confident."
 
The 22-year-old Sze is finishing up his business administration degree, sporting a 3.52 grade-point average. In his ideal post-college scenario, he'll be in the basketball business in some capacity.
 
"I really think I want to get into the sports agent world. That probably will mean going to law school post-grad," he said. "I'm from Seattle, I know a lot of people, and I know a lot of basketball people. I love marketing, and I understand the business side of everything and how money and all of that type of stuff goes.
 
"If I can work in basketball, that would be great, because I love basketball."
 
Perhaps someday, then, a player who is coming up on a contract negotiation or is considering a lucrative endorsement deal just might be able to reach for his phone and dial up Maui Sze …
 
…even if it's from a different area code.