Friday, November 30, 2012

PORTLAND, Ore. - A matchup between nationally 13th ranked Seattle Pacific and No. 25 Alaska Anchorage in Anchorage highlight Saturday’s men’s basketball action in the Great Northwest Athletic Conference.

Both teams are coming off wins Thursday in their conference openers.

The Falcons (6-1) got 30 points from Washington State transfer Patrick Simon in a 72-60 victory at Alaska Fairbanks. The Seawolves (7-1), meanwhile, defeated defending conference champion Montana State Billings 79-65 for their third straight win.

Teancum Stafford and Liam Gibcus led UAA in that game.  Stafford had 16 points and eight rebounds, while Gibcus had 15 points and 13 rebounds.  UAA outrebounded MSUB 48-25 in the contest.

Elsewhere Saturday, sixth-ranked Western Washington (5-0) visits Simon Fraser (5-1) for their conference openers, Central Washington (5-1) travels to Monmouth for a 2 p.m. afternoon game with Western Oregon (5-2), MSU Billings (4-3) plays a 3 p.m. afternoon contest at Alaska Fairbanks (4-4) and Saint Martin's (3-3) hosts Northwest Nazarene (3-3).

The Vikings take an 11-game win streak to Burnaby.  That equals the ninth longest win streak in GNAC history.  It’s also the 15th double-digit win streak in conference history.  WWU has accounted for five of them.

Central Washington and Western Oregon both earned victories Thursday  to extend their respective win streaks to five.

Brandon Magee scored 23 points and Mark McLaughlin had 21 for the Wildcats in a 81-75 win at Saint Martin’s as CWU head coach Greg Sparling earned his 300th career victory. 

Sparling has a 300-185 record in 18 seasons at CWU and is the third coach in school history to reach that plateau. Leo Nicholson won 505 games between 1929-30 and 1963-64 and Dean Nicholson won 609 between 1964-65 and 1989-90.

Western Oregon made its conference debut defeating Northwest Nazarene 93-84 as Andy Avgi scored 24 points and true-freshman guard Devon Alexander came off the bench to score 20 points and grab eight steals, equaling the GNAC single-game record for steals in a conference game.