Friday, January 31, 2014

Television: DirecTV channel 687 and Dish Network channel 426.

ROOT SPORTS NW: check local listings for channel in your area.

PORTLAND, Ore. – Tipping off at a special start time of 9 p.m. Pacific on Saturday evening in Bellingham, the Alaska Anchorage men’s basketball team is set to challenge Western Washington in the GNAC Game of the Week on ROOT SPORTS.

Broadcasting live from Sam Carver Gymnasium on the WWU campus will be play-by-play announcer Brad Adam along with color analyst Dave Harshman, who will be pairing up for the third time this season. Saturday’s game marks the fourth overall in the eight-game GNAC series on ROOT SPORTS, which features all 10 conference schools and both men’s and women’s game through the final weekend of regular season action March 1.

Saturday’s game and the entire Game of the Week series will be broadcast on DriecTV channel 687 and Dish Network channel 426. For more information on the GNAC Game of the Week series on ROOT SPORTS, and to check your local listings, visit the related links section of this article.

University of Alaska Anchorage Seawolves
Coach: Rusty Osborne, 10th season
Record: 13-8, 6-4 GNAC (4th)
Home: 8-5
Away: 3-2
Neutral: 2-1
Current Streak: W3
All-Time vs. WWU: 11-15

Alaska Anchorage has won three games in a row and four of its last five, most recently downing Simon Fraser by one point in a dramatic 65-64 last-ditch triumph on Thursday evening in Burnaby. UAA also picked up a pair of road wins over Western Oregon and Saint Martin’s last week. The Seawolves began their 2013-14 campaign strong, winning five of their first six games in November. UAA’s first Division II home loss of the season came at the hands of Western Washington, which downed the Seawolves 104-89 in Anchorage on Jan. 2. Since the defeat, UAA has gone 5-3 in GNAC play and currently sits just two games back of the Vikings in the conference standings.

Travis Thompson, the reigning Red Lion co-Player of the Week, scored 56 points last week and played a key role in both of the Seawolves’ victories. On the season, Thompson leads the team and ranks second in the GNAC in scoring with 22.5 points per game. The junior guard also leads the team in steals with 29 and minutes played with 35.0 per game, averages 3.8 rebounds, and is shooting 45.5 percent from the floor. Brian McGill and Kyle Fossman are the other two Seawolves to have started all 21 games this season for head coach Rusty Osborne, and they average 17.2 and 15.8 points, respectively. McGill is UAA’s top facilitator with 131 assists so far this season, and his average of 6.2 per game ranks second in the GNAC. Fossman is tied with Thompson in minutes played at 35.0, and his 4.6 rebounds per game is the second-highest figure on the team. Pacing UAA in boards is Teancum Stafford, whose figure of 8.3 per contest slots him fourth in the conference.

As a team the Seawolves are near the top of the conference in scoring margin at plus-12.1, thanks in large part to a GNAC-high 87.9 points per game. UAA is also the best team from the foul line at 80.3 percent, and ranks second in 3-point field goal percentage at 39.7. McGill has more than one third of UAA’s conference-high 374 assists, 81 more than the next-closest team (SPU, 293). The high assist total has helped UAA to the top assist-turnover ratio in the league at 2.1, and the Seawolves protect the ball well with a second-best turnover margin of plus-3.9. From long range, no GNAC team has converted more often that UAA, which has made 264 3-pointers and averages a conference-high 12.6 per contest.

Probable Starters
*Travis Thompson (G, 6-1, Jr., Anchorage, AK – Dimond)
*Brian McGill (G, 6-2, So., Clackamas, OR – Western Oregon)
*Kyle Fossman (G, 6-0, Sr., Haines, AK – Haines)
*Teancum Stafford (G, 6-5, Jr., Auburn, WA – Snow College)
*Brad Mears (F/C, 6-9, Jr., South Jordan, UT – Snow College)

2013-14 Red Lion Players of the Week

Week of Jan. 20-26: Travis Thompson scored 56 points in a pair of contests for the second-straight week, increasing his career total to 1,004. He had 29 points in a 92-58 win at Western Oregon and 27 in a 79-78 victory at Saint Martin’s. In the latter game, he also drew a charge with seven seconds left to secure the win. Thompson, who had six rebounds, five assists and a team-high four steals, shot 59.3 percent from the floor (16-of-27), 52.6 percent from the arc (10-of-19) and 93.3 percent from the foul line (14-of-15).

Week of Dec. 2-8: Brian McGill scored 29 points and also had 10 assists to lead the Seawolves to a 96-76 win over Alaska Fairbanks Saturday at the Wells Fargo Sports Complex. McGill, a transfer from Western Oregon, made 8-of-13 shots, including 2-of-3 3-pointers. He also converted on 11-of-12 foul shots. On the season, McGill ranks fifth in the GNAC in scoring (17.2) and second in assists (6.2).

Western Washington University Vikings
Coach: Tony Dominguez, 2nd season
Record: 14-4, 8-2 GNAC (T-1st)
Home: 11-1
Away: 3-1
Neutral: 0-2
Current Streak: W4
All-Time vs. UAA: 15-11

Since having its incredible 36-game home court winning streak snapped on Jan. 15, Western Washington has recovered with four straight wins and is currently tied with Seattle Pacific for the top spot in the GNAC standings. The Vikings kicked-off their 2013-14 schedule with eight consecutive victories, and toppled UAA in the teams’ first GNAC game of the season on Jan. 2 in Anchorage. WWU lost two of its next three following the win over the Seawolves, including a 76-60 defeat at the hands of SPU that snapped the historic home winning streak that dated back more than two years to Jan. of 2012. On Thursday, WWU battled through a slow start to collect a narrow 53-51 win over Alaska Fairbanks that helped the Vikings remain in first place and pushed the Nanooks down into third in the conference standings. Last week, WWU secured a pair of huge road victories, including a thrilling 99-94 win over Central Washington in Ellensburg and a 91-84 triumph over the Crusaders of Northwest Nazarene in Nampa.

Doing the bulk of the scoring for the Vikings are seniors Austin Bragg and Richard Woodworth, who lead the team with 17.3 and 15.5 points per game, respectively. The tandem also ranks fifth and eighth in the GNAC in scoring, while Bragg’s 9.2 rebounds per contest are the most in the conference. Junior Anye Turner has started 17 games for WWU this season, averaging 10.8 points and ranking sixth in the conference in field goal percentage at 57.9. Turner ranks fifthh in the GNAC in steals per game with 1.6, with teammates Robert Harris and Woodworth close behind at 1.5 and 1.4, respectively. Bragg and Turner combine for the most dynamic one-two combination in the GNAC in terms of blocks, as the two have 66 total between them and average 2.0 and 1.8 (2nd and 3rd in the GNAC), respectively.

From a scoring perspective, only UAA averages more points than WWU’s 86.3 per game, and the Vikings rank third in the conference in scoring margin at plus-9.6. WWU is a premier field goal shooting team, with a percentage of 48.7 from the floor and the top field goal percentage defense in the GNAC with an allowance of just 43.2 percent by opponents. The Vikings also hold the top rebounding margin in the conference at plus-5.8, at lease 4.0 more than eight of the other nine GNAC teams. WWU also has an assist-turnover ratio of 1.1.

Probable Starters
*Austin Bragg (C, 6-9, Sr., Longview, WA – Clark CC)
*Richard Woodworth (G, 6-3, Sr., Bellevue, WA – Newport)
*Robert Harris (G, 5-10, Sr., Kent, WA – Idaho)
*Anye Turner (F, 6-7, Jr., Olympia, WA – South Puget Sound CC)
*Jeffrey Parker (F, 6-6, Fr., Richmond, CA – Salesian)

Red Lion Players of the Week

Week of Nov. 25 – Dec. 1: Austin Bragg scored 20 points and also had 13 rebounds and five blocked shots to lead the Vikings to a 72-69 win over No. 1-ranked Metro State. Bragg hit a driving layup with 11.8 seconds left to give WWU, which ran its home win streak to a school and GNAC-record 31 games, a four-point lead.