Grand Canyon is in its first year playing Division I basketball, but you wouldn’t have known it if you watched them take on the Vandals Thursday night.
The Vandals stayed close for the first half of the game, even holding a two-point lead early in the second half. But GCU proved to be the better team, going on an 18-3 run right after the Vandals took the lead.
“I thought we made some good adjustments at halftime. We go up two at the first media timeout, but they responded and we didn’t,” Idaho coach Don Verlin said.
GCU stretched out its lead to 17, ultimately beating the Vandals 86-73.
“Well, when the heat of the game went up, they out-toughed us, out physical-ed us from the punch and played harder,” Verlin said. “The bottom line is they wanted it more than we did for whatever reason.”
The story of the game was the amount of fouls called — 57 to be exact.
Both teams and officials seem to still be adjusting to new rules, preventing players from hand checking.
“It’s too bad they have done this to our game,” Verlin said. “I mean they just call foul after foul after foul. We might as well have just come out here and shot free throws. The officials are all screwed up, in terms of how they call the game.”
Stephen Madison took advantage of the rule change and made some history. He was perfect from the free-throw line and made all 13 of his attempts, putting him third in school history.
GCU did a good job of guarding Connor Hill, arguably the Vandals best shooter, out of the game. He ended the game with 12 points, going 2-of-5 from three and 5-of-12 from the field.
Idaho had a tough time stopping GCU’s Jerome Garrison, who scored 30 points, and Killian Larson, who had 24. The two combined for 54 of the team’s 86 points.
GCU might be new to Division I, but its facilities and stadium are second-to-none in the WAC.
“It’s amazing what Grand Canyon has put into their basketball program,” Verlin said. “They’ve got 4,200 people. It’s now becoming a tough place to play. They’ve only lost one home game.”
The Vandals will now enjoy a nine-day break before they take on Seattle U on Feb. 1 at the Cowan Spectrum.
“It’ll be good to get back home, it’ll be good to take a few days off,” Verlin said. “We’ve got to get back and keep working. I got to grow this team up.”
Korbin McDonald can be reached at [email protected]