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LAS VEGAS — For a moment, there was a chance.
Seeking its first bid in the Western Athletic Conference Tournament championship game in school history, Utah Valley stared up at a 14-point deficit against Grand Canyon in a semifinal Friday night at Orleans Arena in Las Vegas.
The Wolverines almost pulled off a comeback for the ages.
But "almost" still relegates UVU to another loss, 75-60 in lonely Las Vegas.
"That’s just fight. We stayed together, tried to make something happen," said Kenneth Ogbe, who had 12 points and five rebounds for Utah Valley. "They got us early on, didn’t start well, but we tried to fight back and play as hard as we can."
UVU (22-10) used a 10-0 run in the second half to cut the deficit to single digits, and trailed by just five with 4:30 remaining in regulation.
But the ‘Lopes (22-10) used a 6-1 run to push the lead back to double digits, and held on from the free-throw line to advance to Saturday evening’s final against WAC powerhouse New Mexico State.
"We took a big punch in the second half, and stayed with it," GCU coach Dan Majerle said. "That’s a very good Utah Valley team, and we played excellent tonight."
Another Oh-for
Utah Valley moved to 0-3 in WAC semifinals since joining the league in 2013.
The Wolverines’ latest setback to Grand Canyon comes a year after their epic four-overtime loss to CSU Bakersfield in Las Vegas, and they also lost in the semifinals of the tournament to Idaho in 2014 after winning the WAC regular-season title under former coach Dick Hunsaker.
"This game can be so unkind sometimes," UVU coach Mark Pope said. "Sometimes it just doesn’t tell the story about your guys. I would say that’s definitely the case tonight."
#WACvegas@DanMajerle - he embraces the havoc, especially his@GCUHavocspic.twitter.com/YCM7uD0jWp
— #WACvegas (@WACsports) March 10, 2018
'The biggest party' comes to Vegas
Grand Canyon advances to the WAC tournament finals in its first season of eligibility.
The Lopes, a for-profit, private Christian university based in Phoenix, joined the WAC in 2013 and spent four years a probationary member of Division I.
Called “Havocs” and proclaimed the “biggest party in college basketball” by ESPN broadcasters, the GCU student section and alumni were regularly twice the size of its co-competitors at Orleans Arena.
With students wearing costumes of Egyptian pharaohs, Teletubbies and Kermit the Frog, GCU’s Havoc took up a dominant position behind the arena’s south basketball standard and never let up against opponents.
