SEATTLE – Seattle U men's basketball gave seniors Riley Grigsby and Emeka Udenyi a proper sendoff Friday night at the Redhawk Center, running away with an 80-56 Western Athletic Conference win over UT Arlington to close out the regular season.
The win marked the 20th of the season for Seattle U, which earned back-to-back 20-win seasons for the first time since 1963-64. At 20-11 overall and 11-7 in WAC play, the Redhawks will await the Saturday release of the official WAC Tournament bracket to confirm their seed at next week's championship. A top-four seed would earn the Redhawks a first-round bye into the quarterfinals on Thursday.
"Tonight was big for a lot of reasons," said Head Coach Chris Victor. "We wanted to make sure we perform more like who we are and what we can do and we did that tonight. Getting to 20 wins was big, but the most important thing tonight was making sure Riley and Mek were sent out the right way.
"We talked about it a lot but those guys have meant so much to this program and done so much for us we wanted to make sure they had a great memory of their last home game and I think they are gonna look back at this one fondly for a lot of years."
Cameron Tyson led all scores with 26 points, including 7-of-11 from three. Grigsby, playing in his 132nd game as a Redhawk, finished with 18 points, including 10-of-11 from the charity stripe. Brandon Chatfield added 10 points and seven rebounds before fouling out of the game late.
In his final game at the Redhawk Center, Udenyi chipped in two points, five rebounds, two assists and a steal.
Chendall Weaver and Kyron Gibson paced UTA with 10 points apiece.
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— Seattle U Men's Basketball (@seattleumbb) March 4, 2023
For the first time since 1963-64!#TogetherWeSoar pic.twitter.com/EyvzKbMd5R
A sluggish offensive start to the night for both sides saw Seattle U start to get things going with back-to-back threes from Chatfield and Kobe Williamson to lead 12-6. The Redhawks would push the spread to 10, 20-10 before a UTA 6-0 spurt narrowed the gap.
Tyson would start to heat up, finishing the first half with 14 points, including four threes, and the Redhawks took a 36-27 lead into the break.
Early second-half threes from Tyson and Chatfield extended the lead to 13, 42-29, and the Redhawks continued to extend the spread as the Mavericks struggled to find their mark.
An Alex Schumacher floater in the lane at the 11:27 mark pushed the lead over 20, 54-33. Seattle U would lead by as many as 29, allowing Victor to empty the bench and give Grigsby and Udenyi each a standing ovation as they exited the game.
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