Grand Canyon men’s basketball hung tough with undefeated Oklahoma State, but came up short on Saturday, Dec. 6, in the opening game of the Jerry Colangelo Classic at Mortgage Matchup Center.
Arizona State and Oklahoma met in the nightcap.
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The Lopes (5-4) led by three, 67-64 with 7:43 left in the second half, but fell 84-78 to the Cowboys despite 22 points from center Efe Demirel and 19 from guard Caleb Shaw.
With hundreds of students providing an atmosphere almost as raucous as their home gym on the Grand Canyon campus, the Lopes got down by as many as nine points in the second half and couldn’t get enough defensive stops.
Parsa Fallah led Oklahoma State (9-0) with 25 points, and the Cowboys made 58 percent of their shots for the game.
Tough interior defense keyed a comeback for GCU in the second half. Trailing 50-41 in the opening minutes of the half, the Lopes chipped away at the lead and went up 63-62 on Shaw’s 3-pointer in front of his own bench with 8:37 to play.
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Then a steal and dunk by Shaw made it 65-62, and the Havocs on GCU’s end of the court went crazy.
Jaylen Curry scored for OSU, but GCU’s Makaih Williams hit a layup to push the advantage back to three.
After shaw hit Demirel on a pick-and-roll for a dunk to tie the game at 69, the Cowboys scored six straight points to surge back in front and held on from there.
Williams knocked down a 3 with 55 seconds left to cut Oklahoma State’s lead to 79-76, and a follow of a missed shot by Jaden Henley made it 80-78 with 39 seconds to go.
But Kanye Clary hit a contested pull-up 3-pointer with 14.4 seconds, the basket that effectively sealed defeat for GCU.
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Oklahoma State made 15 of 29 shots in the first half and led by as many as eight points, 38-30. The Cowboys led, 42-39, at halftime despite not making a single 3-point shot on seven attempts.
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This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Efe Demirel scores 22 for Grand Canyon in loss to Oklahoma State
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