Seattle University has a chance at a rare superfecta when it travels to Spokane, Wash., to meet No. 7 Gonzaga on Friday night
The Redhawks could claim the unofficial state championship.
Seattle (12-3 overall, 1-1 West Coast Conference) has already defeated Eastern Washington, Washington and Washington State this season and could complete a sweep of the Evergreen State’s NCAA Division I programs with a victory.
The Redhawks defeated EWU 94-67 on Nov. 12 and Washington 70-66 on Dec. 19 in the Battle for Seattle.
After losing its WCC opener 67-59 to visiting San Francisco on Sunday, Seattle earned its first win in its new conference Tuesday with a 69-55 victory against visiting Washington State. Brayden Maldonado led a balanced attack with 15 points, making 3 of 6 3-point attempts, and Junseok Yeo scored 10.
The Redhawks got solid contributions from several other players: Will Heimbrodt added nine points, three assists, three blocked shots and two steals; Maleek Arington had eight points and three assists; Jojo Murphy had eight points, making both of his 3-point tries, four steals and two assists; Miles Amos scored seven points; and Austin Maurer had six points, a team-high six rebounds, three assists, three blocks and two steals.
Now the Redhawks face their first road game in WCC play against a program that has won 22 regular-season conference titles in coach Mark Few’s 26 seasons.
“That’s like our welcome to the conference schedule. We’re going to start out with some big tests,” Redhawks coach Chris Victor said. “This is a heck of a conference. We’re just going to put our head down and see what we can do.”
The Bulldogs (14-1, 2-0) opened conference play with a 96-56 victory Sunday at Pepperdine, then struggled to get past host San Diego 99-93 Tuesday night, nearly blowing a 21-point lead against the Toreros.
Asked what his message was to his players after the game, Few was blunt.
“That it’s not good enough,” he said. “The goal is to win, so I congratulated them for that. Just the way we handled that last four minutes isn’t going to be good enough to A) win this league; or B) advance to where we want to advance.”
Forward Jalen Warley, who sat out last season after transferring from Virginia, posted his first career double-double with a season-high 22 points and a career-best 14 rebounds.
“You’ve always got to celebrate a win, especially on the road when there’s a lot of great teams in this conference,” Warley said. “We definitely know there’s a lot of things we’ve got to improve on.”
With big men Graham Ike and Braden Huff in foul trouble, the Bulldogs had to look to other sources for scoring.
Tyon Grant-Foster and Mario Saint-Supery both delivered off the bench. Grant-Foster had 18 points and five rebounds and Saint-Supery added 14 points, making 3 of 6 3-pointers, and five assists.
Huff finished with 14 points and eight rebounds and Ike added 11 points on 5-for-5 shooting from the field and nine boards.
Ike lost his composure late in the first half after a couple of rough plays and terse words against San Diego’s Vuk Boskovic. Ike slammed a water bottle to the floor after being replaced following an offensive foul and received a technical.
“It’s just unacceptable, it’s not helping, it’s really, really hurting the team,” Few said. “He’s a great player, but that behavior’s just really hurting the team.”
–Field Level Media
