By GUY PERRIN
\nStaff Writer<\/p>\n
The men\u2019s basketball team will make their debut in the NCAA Division II men\u2019s basketball tournament when they take on number-one seed Azusa Pacific University Friday, March 13.<\/p>\n
The Wolves, who made their first-ever appearance at the Great Northwest Athletic Conference tournament, earned an at-large bid from the selection committee thanks to an impressive 23-6 regular season record in the.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am looking forward to our first game, and that is all what\u2019s in my mind,\u201d said forward Andy Avgi, who was voted GNAC Player of the Year.<\/p>\n
Despite the upset in the GNAC conference tournament semifinals to rival Western Washington, Western will play in the NCAA D II tournament.<\/p>\n
The Wolves got 29 points from Avgi but couldn\u2019t quite catch up after Western Washington used a 21-10 scoring run in the firsthalf to take a nine-point lead into halftime.<\/p>\n
On a 10-game winning streak, the Vikings shot an incredible 61 percent from the field to hold off Western in the second half to claim the 88-79 victory and advance to the final.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe motivation is always there but what the loss did was make us beg for a second chance,\u201d said guard Devon Alexander. \u201cNow that we got a second chance, every little detail is crucial. When we heard our name called, the whole team went bananas because we know how big this is for us as a team and university.\u201d<\/p>\n
Despite the loss, the NCAA tournament selection committee deemed the Wolves regular season performance worthy of a spot in the Big Dance. This will be Western\u2019s second time facing Azusa Pacific this season. Previously, the Cougars prevailed 81-74 in a back and forth contest.<\/p>\n
The Wolves have already shattered expectations this season.<\/p>\n
In addition to their GNAC tournament debut and a berth to the NCAA tournament, the Wolves earned three post-season individual awards: Avgi, GNAC Player of the Year; guard Julian Nichols, Newcomer of the Year; and head coach Brady Bergeson Coach of Year.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s been an amazing year so far,\u201d Nichols said. \u201cIt\u2019s an honor to have received the award, but I could not have gotten it without my teammates and coaches believing in me, and all the hard work that\u2019s been put in.<\/p>\n
First year here and making it to regionals — it\u2019s always been a goal of ours. We\u2019re looking to take it one game at a time and simply enjoying the moment.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By GUY PERRIN Staff Writer The men\u2019s basketball team will make their debut in the NCAA Division II men\u2019s basketball tournament when they take on number-one seed Azusa Pacific University Friday, March 13. The Wolves, who made their first-ever appearance at the Great Northwest Athletic Conference tournament, earned an at-large bid from the selection committee […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":367,"featured_media":0,"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":[3,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-919","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","category-sports"],"modified_by":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/919","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\/367"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=919"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/919\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=919"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=919"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=919"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}