The Seattle University men’s basketball team once again led Texas-Pan American wire-to-wire, sweeping the season series from the Broncs with an 83-62 victory Thursday night in Western Athletic Conference action at KeyArena.
Seattle U jumped out to an 11-2 lead thanks to three-pointers by Emerson Murray (Vancouver, B.C.), Clarence Trent (Tacoma, Wash.), and Jarell Flora (Bremerton, Wash.), as well as a dunk by Shore Adenekan (London, England). The Broncs would score seven unanswered points, the last five from Javorn Farrell, to close their deficit to two, but another Adenekan dunk stopped the UTPA run.
The Redhawks would outscore the Broncs over a seven-minute span 21-5 to take their biggest lead of the first half at 36-17 with 6:42 left before halftime, led by Isiah Umipig (Federal Way, Wash.) with seven points and D’Vonne Pickett Jr. (Seattle, Wash.) with six points during the run. Two three-pointers from Justin Leathers helped the Broncs close the deficit to nine at 41-32 before a made free throw from Emmanuel Chibuogwu (Shoreline, Wash.) brought the halftime score to 42-32.
Seattle U would put the game away early in the second half thanks to an 8-0 run, capped by back-to-back three-pointers from Umipig. A stretch of six unanswered points midway through the second half would extend the Redhawks’ lead above 20 points, and the two squads basically traded points over the final nine minutes of the game.
“It is good to get an effort like that at home tonight, as we have played well on the road, but we needed to do something like this in front of our fans,” Seattle U head coach Cameron Dollar said. “Our guys are improving and getting better, and tonight they imposed their will and were aggressive on both ends of the floor.”
Umipig hit five three-pointers to lead all players with 21 points, his highest point total since the Bakersfield game Jan. 16, while Pickett finished with 15 points, four rebounds, four assists, a blocked shot, and a steal. Adenekan notched his first career double-double with 14 points and 11 rebounds, plus he blocked two shots, Flora added 11 points and three assists, and Jack Crook (Manchester, England) contributed seven points and nine rebounds.
UTPA (6-18, 2-7 WAC) was led by Shaquille Boga with 16 points, three assists, and four steals, with Shaquille Hines scoring 15 points and Farrell finishing with 14 points, six rebounds, and three assists. As a team, the Broncs shot just 34.5 percent from the field (20-of-58), including 5-of-14 from behind the three-point line, and 77.3 percent from the free throw line (17-of-22).
Seattle U hit 47.4 percent (27-of-57) of its field goal attempts, including 10-of-23 shots from behind the three-point line, and 67.9 percent (19-of-28) of its free throw attempts. The Redhawks won the rebounding battle, 39-32, and committed only 11 turnovers while scoring 19 points off 12 Bronc turnovers.
Seattle University (11-10, 3-5 WAC) will look to extend its two-game winning streak Saturday, Feb. 8, against New Mexico State starting at 7 p.m. at KeyArena. The game will be broadcast on 770 AM KTTH with Dave Grosby and Gary Hill Jr. as well as televised on ROOT Sports with Tom Glasgow, Bill Krueger, and Jen Mueller.