{"id":3046,"date":"2016-02-26T12:27:38","date_gmt":"2016-02-26T20:27:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.wou.edu\/westernjournal\/?p=3046"},"modified":"2016-02-26T12:27:38","modified_gmt":"2016-02-26T20:27:38","slug":"we-are-the-champions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/we-are-the-champions\/","title":{"rendered":"We are the Champions"},"content":{"rendered":"
By: Jamal Smith \r\nSports Editor<\/pre>\n
The men\u2019s basketball team had something to prove going into their matchup with the University of Alaska Anchorage (UAA) on Saturday, Feb. 20, 2016 after a Tuesday loss to the University of Alaska Fairbanks, which was their third loss of the season.<\/p>\n
Western rebounded from their loss and defeated the Seawolves 64-58. The close-fought victory improves the Wolves\u2019 overall record to 23-3 and 16-2 in GNAC conference play.<\/p>\n
More importantly, the win seals the team\u2019s first goal: winning the GNAC Regular-Season Championship.<\/p>\n
Senior Julian Nichols (G) led the Wolves in scoring with 17 points. Nichols flirted with a triple-double but finished just short with seven assists and seven rebounds.  <\/p>\n
Three other Wolves scored in double figures: senior Devon Alexander (G) had 14 points, redshirt sophomore Tanner Omlid (G\/F) had 12 points, and the 2015 GNAC Player of the Year, redshirt senior Andy Avgi, had 11 points on a tough shooting night.<\/p>\n
Western came out firing on all cylinders from the opening tip, scoring the first eight points of the game on consecutive three-pointers from senior Jordan Wiley (G)  and Omlid, followed by a fast-break layup courtesy of Nichols.<\/p>\n
Westerns\u2019 lead was short lived as the Seawolves started draining shots from distance and the Wolves hit a dry spell. After an Avgi layup made the score 16-11 with the advantage to the Wolves, Western failed to score in just over five minutes of play and UAA took a 17-16 lead.<\/p>\n
Head coach Jim Shaw, unhappy with the Wolves\u2019 inability to score, called a timeout and regrouped his troops. Just seconds out of the timeout, junior Janvier Alaby (G) broke the Wolves\u2019 scoring drought by scoring 4 points off of a much-needed jumper and draining two free throws, but the Seawolves would still take a 26-23 lead into halftime.<\/p>\n
The second half went back-and-forth with both teams fighting for every point. The game was so closely contested; there were 16 lead changes with 10 coming in the second half.<\/p>\n
With 2:37 seconds remaining in the game and UAA up 56-52, Western buckled down on defense and showed why they are the No. 1 team in Division II basketball, only allowing the Seawolves two points in the final two minutes of regulation.<\/p>\n
In the final two minutes, Wiley and Alexander both drained the deep ball and Nichols hit four clutch free throws to give the Wolves a 64-58 lead, the largest lead by either team in the game.<\/p>\n
Before the start of the week Western looked like the consensus No. 1 seed going into the Division II playoffs, but Tuesday\u2019s loss to Alaska Fairbanks puts the top seed in jeopardy. Regardless, the Wolves will be in a great position for a deep playoff run.<\/p>\n
Contact the author at jsmith15@wou.edu or on Twitter @journalsportWOU<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The men\u2019s basketball team had something to prove going into their matchup with the University of Alaska Anchorage (UAA) on Saturday, Feb. 20, 2016 after a Tuesday loss to the University of Alaska Fairbanks, which was their third loss of the season.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":825,"featured_media":3055,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3046","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"modified_by":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3046","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/825"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3046"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3046\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3055"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3046"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3046"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3046"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}