Monday, March 7, 2022

PORTLAND, Ore. – This past weekend’s GNAC Basketball Championships in Lacey, Washington provided a pair of historic victories and defining moments for two conference programs.

The Central Washington women’s basketball team ran the table to win its first tournament title in program history, completing the achievement with a 57-46 victory over top-seeded Western Washington. On the men’s side, the Alaska Nanooks made an improbable run from No. 10 seed to champions, winning four games in four days including a 72-57 finals victory over the Central Washington men.

After lifting conference trophies and earning automatic qualifying bids to the NCAA Championships, both teams have earned the additional honor of GNAC Co-Teams of the Week.

Entering the tournament as the No. 3 seed, Central Washington was tested by No. 6 seed Simon Fraser in the quarterfinals with a barn-burning 91-85 victory, but that was the closest any team got to the Wildcats all tournament. They dispatched No. 2 Alaska Anchorage in the semifinals 80-65 despite losing both their regular-season match-ups to the Seawolves, then reeled WWU in after the Vikings got out to early leads of 9-2 and 14-10 to pull away with the championship.

“To win a championship – I don’t even have words, “ CWU head coach Randi Richardson-Thornley said. “As a coach, you have an idea and a process in mind of what it’s going to take to do this. We trusted it, we bought into it, we had players buy into it. To finally see that work come to fruition is incredible.”

Similar to CWU’s storyline all season long, the Wildcats were boosted by superstar performances from Samantha Bowman, who took home tournament MVP honors after averaging 14.7 points and 17.3 rebounds over three games. Bowman finished just shy of a triple-double with 16 points, 13 rebounds and nine assists against Alaska Anchorage before setting a GNAC Championships record with 23 rebounds in the finals win over Western Washington.

Central Washington also got big scoring games from Kizzah Maltezo (26 points against Simon Fraser and 22 points against UAA), Valerie Huerta (18 points against Simon Fraser and nine points against UAA), Kassidy Malcolm (averaged 17 points per game with a high of 19 against SFU) and Jenna Troy, who scored a career-high 13 points in the championship win over WWU.

The Nanooks also had a tough first-round battle with Simon Fraser, the No. 7 seed in the men’s tournament. Alaska’s do-everything guard Shadeed Shabazz had an incredible game, with 41 points (one away from his own tournament scoring record), seven rebounds, three assists and six steals in a 91-83 overtime win. Shabazz’s heroics helped UAF overcome a miracle game-tying three at the buzzer from SFU’s David Penney to send it to that extra period.

Despite having to play four games in four days with a seven-man roster, Alaska gained confidence and its momentum began to snowball all the way through the weekend. They topped No. 2 seed NNU 83-62 in the quarterfinals behind a career-high 32 points from Abdullahi Mohamed, received a 33-point game from Shabazz in the semifinals to top in-state rival and No. 3 Alaska Anchorage 63-58 and outscored No. 5 Central Washington 45-29 in the second half to run away from the Wildcats in the title game.

“It really is an unbelievable run with all the stops and starts throughout the year,” Alaska head coach Greg Sparling said. “I couldn’t be more proud of these guys. They stepped up when they needed to. We came in as a No. 10, everybody said we were the scariest team in the tournament, and we proved it.”

Shabazz took home tournament MVP honors after averaging 28 points and 4.3 steals per game in the Nanooks’ four contests. Coleman Sparling scored 15 and 18 points in UAF’s first two games, then had 11 rebounds in each of the Nanooks’ final two. The Nanooks’ run comes in the first season that the No. 10 seed was even eligible to make the tournament, with the GNAC expanding the tournament to ten teams from the usual six for one time only this season due to COVID-19 related scheduling imbalances.

Both teams can look ahead to the regional round of the NCAA Championships. The Wildcats are the No. 2 seed in the women’s West Regional, highest among four GNAC teams to make the cut, and will face conference foe Northwest Nazarene in the first round on Friday, Mar. 11 at 2:30 p.m. Alaska was the only GNAC’s men’s team to qualify for the NCAA tournament. They will be the No. 8 seed in the region and will face No. 1 Cal State San Marcos on Friday.