Redhawks Turn Away Cougs for First WCC Win

SEATTLE – Brayden Maldonado scored 15 points, Junseok Yeo added 10 and the Seattle University men's basketball pulled away from Washington State down the stretch for its first West Coast Conference victory, a 69-55 final on Tuesday night inside Climate Pledge Arena.

Making their return to the WCC this season, the Redhawks put their first tally into the conference win column since a 76-58 victory against San Diego on Feb. 28, 1980.

On multiple occasions during Tuesday’s game, Seattle U (12-3, 1-1 WCC) seemed poised to pull away from Washington State (6-9, 1-1 WCC), building double-digit leads. But the Cougars kept staging rallies.

The Redhawks had a 53-41 with 8:07 to play. WSU put the next eight points on the board, closing to 53-49 at the 5:57 mark.

Seattle U responded with six straight to stretch it back out to 59-49. The Cougars came back within six at 59-53 at 2:58 to go.

But it was all Redhawks down the stretch as the home team scored 10 of the game’s final 12 points while holding the Cougars without a field goal int he final three minutes. Maldonado drained a 3-pointer from the left corner at 2:28 to go, then added a pair of free throws at 1:24 left for a 64-53 advantage.

Maleek Arington stole the ball in back court, was fouled, and hit both free throws at the 1:13 mark to make it 66-53. The final points for Washington State came on a pair of free throws by Emmanuel Ugbo with 55.8 seconds left.

Seattle U closed it with three foul shots – one by Austin Maurer and two by Miles Amos.

After a sluggish start to the game during which they missed their first five shots and didn’t score until 4:28 had ticked off the clock, the Redhawks found their shooting touch. They hit 14 of their final 24 in the half and outscored WSU by a 32-13 margin after falling into an early 9-4 hole.

Seattle U put together a 10-2 scoring burst in the final 2:08, stretching a 26-20 lead to a 36-22 halftime margin. That included three straight baskets in the final 1:16 – a 3-pointer by Jojo Murphy, a lay-in by Maurer off an assist from Maldonado after Murphy came up with a steal in backcourt, and a buzzer-beating 3-pointer from the left corner by Maldonado off a feed by Will Heimbrodt.

By the Numbers

--The Redhawks shot 42.6 percent for the night (20-of-47), a 15-point improvement from Sunday’s 27 percent mark against San Francisco.

--Defensively, they limited the Cougars to just 19 field goals and 29.7 percent shooting (19-of-64).

--Maurer had a team-leading six rebounds.

--Seattle U has dropped just three games this season (Cal Poly, UC Santa Barbara and San Francisco), but each time has come back with a victory in its next outing (Eastern Washington, Puget Sound and now Washington State).

--Seattle U is now 3-0 against legacy Pac-12 Conference teams so far this season, having defeated Stanford, Washington and now Washington State. There’s one more game left against the Cougars (Jan. 28 in Pullman) and two against Oregon State (Jan.  8 in Corvallis and Feb. 15 in Seattle).

--It wasn’t just the Redhawks who got off to a cold start. WSU missed its first four shots before putting the first basket of the game into the book after 2 minutes, 55 seconds had elapsed. At the first media timeout of the half, taken at the 15;49 mark, the score was still just 2-0 for the Cougars.

--SU is now 5-1 all-time at home against the Cougars and now has a 10-9 lead in the series.

--Ace Glass, who has won two WCC Freshman of the Week awards so far this season, led the Cougars with 13 points.

Up Next
After a home-friendly first couple of months, the Redhawks take to the road for their next three games. The first of those is on Friday at Gonzaga, tipping off at 6:00 p.m. inside The Kennel.