Grand Canyon’s 1st NCAA match win ousts Saint Mary’s

SPOKANE, Wash. — Grand Canyon’s first NCAA match win arrived in fashion.

Of their third look within the match since elevating to Division I in 2013, the Lopes defeated Saint Mary’s in a 75-66 win Friday at Spokane Enviornment.

“That is form of the following step within the maturation of a successful program, is with the ability to win a sport within the match,” Grand Canyon males’s basketball coach Bryce Drew mentioned. “And for myself — and I feel for our program and for our college — it’s simply an enormous step. Some extra folks can notice how particular a faculty GCU is and hopefully the hassle we gave tonight, hopefully we will comply with up with an awesome effort on Sunday [against fourth-seeded Alabama].”

It was additionally a validating win. When Drew interviewed at GCU in 2020, he was offered with a imaginative and prescient of days like this one. The crew had been a constant winner underneath former coach Dan Majerle however had failed to achieve the NCAA match in its first seven seasons on the Division I stage.

Drew noticed this system’s potential and was in want of a private reset after his three-year tenure because the coach at Vanderbilt ended with a winless SEC season in 2018-19.

“We’re such a singular place. We’re a faculty of religion. We’ve 25,000 on floor, we’ve 90,000 on-line, and it is solely rising,” Drew mentioned. “And 4 years in the past, once I got here to interview with President Mueller, who’s right here, and Jerry Colangelo. Spoke to them about their imaginative and prescient they usually advised me what they envisioned for GCU, and it has been wonderful to look again 4 years now at that first speak and a lot of what we talked about is going on proper now.”

Drew, after all, is not any stranger to March Insanity upsets, having made probably the most iconic photographs in tournaments historical past in 1998, when his 3-pointer on the buzzer despatched Thirteenth-seeded Valparaiso previous No. 4 Ole Miss 70-69.

His father, Homer, was the coach of that Valpo crew that reached the Candy 16. Homer was in attendance Friday however won’t be sticking round to see Grand Canyon play Alabama, as a substitute opting to see his different son, Baylor coach Scott Drew, lead the Bears in opposition to Clemson on Sunday in Memphis.

Each groups are within the West area and would play within the Elite Eight in the event that they every win two extra video games.

Grand Canyon’s win was not a typical upset. The underdogs have been sooner, stronger and extra aggressive. They completed with eight steals and 9 blocks, whereas Saint Mary’s — the West Coast Convention regular-season and match champion — performed timidly.

“It is cool to see the world seeing what we’re able to, what GCU is able to,” ahead Gabe McGlothan mentioned. “And simply that we’re simply not achieved but.”

Tyon Grant-Foster, the one-time Kansas Jayhawk who transferred to Grand Canyon from DePaul, led the Lopes with 22 factors and was one in every of 4 GCU gamers to attain in double figures, together with Ray Harrison (17), Collin Moore (10) and McGlothan (12).