LACEY, Wash. – The only way into next week's NCAA Tournament for the Seattle Pacific Falcons was to win three straight games this week.
They won three straight games.
They're in.
Owen Moriarty scored 20 points – 18 of those during the second half, Mason Landdeck and Jonas La Tour added 14 apiece, and SPU claimed the trophy in the Great Northwest Athletic Conference men's basketball tournament on Saturday night by defeating Central Washington, 72-61.
"I try to be there for my teammates as much as possible," Moriarty said. "That helps take some nerves off of myself, just trying to be available for my teammates and do what we need to win. Keeping my focus on my teammates and what it takes to win rather than what I want to do individually, definitely helps me stay locked in. Shout out to my teammates, and shout out to our coaches for putting together three great game plans. We executed those to the best of our ability, and it worked out for us."
The victory for the Falcons (18-14) in Marcus Pavilion at Saint Martin's gave them the conference's automatic entry into the NCAA West Regionals. It will be their first time dancing since 2019 after beating Western Oregon for the GNAC crown. (Seattle Pacific received an at-large bid in 2020, but that tournament was canceled in the early days of the pandemic shutdown.)
"We knew we had to win the tournament to get into the NCAA Tournament," head coach Keffrey Fazio said. "The expectation was to come in here and do whatever we could to get these three games. I'm, really proud of what the group was able to put together to navigate through the three different games. Shot-making is nice to have, but we knew we needed to defend to win this tournament. Defense turned out to be the backbone of this tournament for us."
This was the fifth appearance in the GNAC title game for the Falcons – and they have won all five (2013, '14, '15, '19, and now '25).
Julian Mora chipped in 11 points for SPU and Jaxon Nap corralled 15 rebounds to go along with his seven points.
Landdeck was named the tournament's Most Valuable Player. He was joined on the All-Tournament team by Moriarty and Nap.
"Shout out to this team," Landdeck said. "We've been through so much this year. It's been a crazy ride. To get this far is surreal. We came in here, we were prepared, and we knew we had to get three to get to March Madness. Everyone was locked in from the jump. We knew what we had to do, and we did it."
The West Regionals will begin next Friday at a site yet to be determined. All of that, including SPU's first-round opponent, will be revealed on the NCAA Division II Selection Show on Sunday at 8:00 p.m. Pacific time.
The Falcons came into the GNAC Tournament as the No. 3 seed and had dropped three of their last four to finish the regular season.
But in a 55-hour stretch that began with Thursday's noontime first-round game, SPU routed No. 6 seed Alaska Fairbanks, 81-47, beat No. 2 seed Northwest Nazarene in Friday's semifinals, 73-68, then led for all but the opening moments of Saturday's title game against No. 1 seed and GNAC regular-season champion Central Washington.
"It's special, for sure," Fazio said. "I look at myself and our coaches as the shepherds of this program. It's our job to lead them in a way that makes all the other guys who have been through our locker room proud of the tradition that SPU has. I think we did that this year. It's an honor to coach at this university and to coach the young men in our program. We're grateful and very proud, but this is something we've been working for since November. They've taken this and made it their own."
Down 4-3 after trading the first three baskets with the Wildcats, Seattle Pacific ran off 11 straight points to go ahead for good: back-to-back lay-ups by Nap, a 3-pointer by Mora, a driving lay-up by Landdeck, and another lay-up by LaTour, all while keeping Central off the board for five full minutes.
The Falcons took a 33-20 lead into the locker room at halftime. They then had a cold start to the second half, not scoring until 3¼ minutes had ticked off the clock – and that was just one point on a Moriarty free throw. Central cut the deficit back down to single digits at 34-26.
SPU put the next five points on the board as part of a 7-2 run, and the closest the Wildcats came after that was 10 at 62-52 with just 2:26 remaining. A 9-0 Falcons scoring burst produced a 19-point advantage, their biggest of the night, at 71-52 with just 1:05 to go.
BY THE NUMBERS
-- The 20 points scored by Central during the first half was the second time this week the Falcons set a season low for opponent's scoring in a half. They gave up just 21 points to Alaska Fairbanks on Thursday.
-- SPU shot 50 percent for the day, connecting on 25 of 50, including 6 of 13 (46.2 percent) from downtown.
-- The Wildcats shot 40 percent (24 of 60), with 7 of 22 (31.8 percent) behind the arc.
-- After not getting to the foul line at all during the first half, the Falcons connected on 16 of 20 in the second half. Owen Moriarty was 7 of 8 (6 of 6 inside the final five minutes), Mason Landdeck was 5 of 6, and Jonas La Tour was 3 of 4.
-- Jaxon Nap's 15 rebounds accounted for nearly half of SPU's 34.
-- Along with his 14 points, Landdeck had six assists and two steals.
-- Having scored just 22 points in the paint against Northwest Nazarene, SPU had 38 against Central.
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