Tuesday, December 31, 2013

PORTLAND, Ore. - Seattle Pacific will take a No. 11 national ranking into the 2014 portion of its schedule which begins Thursday with a road game at Western Oregon.

The Falcons bring an 11-2 record, including a 2-0 GNAC mark, into the contest.  Western Oregon, which is on a GNAC-best four-game winning streak, is 8-4, including 1-1 in conference play.

It is one of four games on Thursday's schedule.  Elsewhere in the GNAC Thursday, Western Washington visits Alaska Anchorage, Simon Fraser plays at Alaska Fairbanks and Montana State Billings is at Saint Martin's.  Central Washington and Northwest Nazarene are idle until resuming play on Saturday at Nampa.

Western Washington brings a No. 15 national ranking into its contest against the Seawolves, who are ranked 23rd.  The Vikings are 8-2, but lost their last two contests in Las Vegas after opening the season with eight straight home victories.  They're tied for first place with Seattle Pacific in the conference standings with 2-0 records.

UAA is 8-4 overall and 1-0 in the GNAC.  Three of its four losses came to Division I schools in the Great Alaska Shootout.

The three GNAC teams are among six West Region teams ranked in the Top 25, led by the PacWest's Dixie State at No. 7. 

The Red Storm are 9-0 including wins over Seattle Pacific (90-88 in overtime), Western Oregon (78-74), Central Washington (106-89) and Montana State Billings (83-65).

Cal State San Bernardino (7-1), which handed Western Washington its first loss (99-91), is ranked 19th and Chico State (7-1), which gave SPU its second loss (73-70), is ranked 21st.

West Liberty State (8-0) is ranked No. 1.  Both West Liberty and Western Washington are riding 35-game home win streaks, the longest current home win streaks in Division II.

Streaking

Western Oregon's Marwan Sarhan will take a streak of 15 consecutive field goals made into the Wolves' home game against Seattle Pacific.   That equals the third longest streak in GNAC history. 

On the year, Sarhan ranks fifth in the GNAC in field goal percentage, shooting 63.4.

Austin Hudson of Montana State Billings is the leader with a 75.4 percentage and is on pace to break the GNAC single-season record of 72.9 set by Wade Joseph of Northwest Nazarene during the 2005-06 season.

League Leaders

In addition to Hudson, other early-season league-leaders include Mark McLaughlin of Central Washington, Travis Thompson and Brian McGill of Alaska Anchorage, Austin Bragg of Western Washington, David Downs of Seattle Pacific and Joe Slocum of Alaska Fairbanks.

McLaughlin, bidding for his second straight GNAC scoring title, is averaging 24.0 points per game, 1.2 more than Thompson, who is the leader is three-pointers made (4.3) and free throw percentage (92.4). 

McGill leads the GNAC in assists (7.3) and Bragg is the leader in rebounding (8.9) and blocked shots (2.60). 

Downs, who ranks third in scoring (20.0), is the conference leader in three-point percentage (57.1), while Slocum is the leader in steals (2.1).