THIS WEEK IN SEAWOLF MEN’S BASKETBALL
Tuesday, Feb. 9 – 5 pm AST – Alterowitz Gymnasium – Billings, Mont.
Alaska Anchorage (18-7, 11-3 GNAC) at
at Montana State Billings (8-14, 5-9 GNAC)
&
Thursday, Feb. 11 – 7:30 pm AST – Alaska Airlines Center – Anchorage, Alaska
Alaska Fairbanks (16-6, 10-4 GNAC) at Alaska Anchorage
TV: Thursday’s UAA/UAF game will be shown live throughout Alaska on GCI cable Ch. 1 (SD) and Ch. 999 (HD).
RADIO: None
LIVE VIDEOSTREAM & STATS: Both games free at portal.stretchinternet.com/uaa
TICKETS: $10 at the door, online at alaskaairlinescenter.com, or by calling 907-786-1562 ... discounts apply for UAA staff/faculty, alumni, senior (60+), youth (3-18) and military ... groups of 10 or more can purchase in bulk for $6 per ticket ... UAA students free with valid WolfCard ... more information at GoSeawolves.com.
UAA PROBABLE STARTERS (2015-16 stats)
G—Brian McGill, 6-2, Sr. (17.9 ppg, 3.0 rpg, 3.8 apg, 1.5 spg, .523 FG, .351 3FG, .944 FT)
G—Sekou ‘Suki’ Wiggs, 6-4, Jr. (23.8 ppg, 7.2 rpg, 3.6 apg, 1.5 spg, .430 FG, .326 3FG, .764 FT)
G—Spencer Svejcar, 6-4, Jr. (12.9 ppg, 3.2 rpg, 2.3 apg, .453 FG, .383 3FG, .870 FT)
F—Corey Hammell, 6-6, Jr. (12.5 ppg, 10.0 rpg, 1.6 apg, .457 FG, .822 FT)
F—Tayler Thompson, 6-8, Jr. (4.2 ppg, 3.1 rpg, .679 FG, .615 FT, 11.8 mpg)
or Travis Parrish, 6-4, Jr. (1.3 ppg, 1.5 rpg, .481 FG, 9.6 mpg)
SOCIAL MEDIA
Twitter: @UAAMBB (for in-game updates) and @UAASeawolves
Facebook: Alaska Anchorage Seawolves
Instagram: UAA_Seawolves
YouTube & SnapChat: UAA Seawolves
Hashtags: #SeawolfHoops #UAASeawolves
SCOUTING THE OPPONENTS: Montana State Billings has gone 2-1 since halting a 7-game losing streak on Jan. 30, including a 75-54 home blowout of NW Nazarene on Saturday ... having lost their second- and fourth-leading scorers to injury, the Yellowjackets are led by 6-2 Jr. G Marc Matthews (14.1 ppg, 3.6 rpg, 2.0 apg, .392 3FG, .947 FT) and 6-7 Fr. F Preston Beverly (12.0 ppg, 6.3 rpg, .434 FG, .313 3FG) ... making its first playoff push in over a decade, Alaska Fairbanks has won three straight and is an impressive 5-1 in GNAC road games thus far ... the Nanooks are led by 6-4 Sr. G/F Travante Williams (18.1 ppg, 7.4 rpg, 2.7 apg, 2.4 spg, .449 FG, .403 3FG, .785 FT) and 6-8 Sr. C Almir Hadzisehovic (13.1 ppg, 5.2 rpg, 1.0 bpg, .630 FG, .647 FT).
TEAM COMPARISONS UAA MSUB UAF
UAA Road/MSUB Home 6-1 3-5 n/a
UAA Home/UAF Road 9-4 n/a 5-1
Points per Game 85.4 73.7 84.2
Points Allowed/Game 73.4 79.7 74.4
Rebounding Diff. +6.1 -1.7 +1.8
Assists per Game 16.2 12.9 17.0
Turnovers per Game 11.5 15.1 11.4
Steals per Game 5.7 5.2 8.7
Blocks per Game 2.7 3.1 4.0
FG% .467 .420 .468
3-pt FG% .368 .358 .340
FT% .803 .736 .675
THE SERIES vs MSUB: UAA leads 42-29
In Billings: MSUB leads 22-12
Last Meeting: UAA 81-61 (1/12/16 at UAA)
Streak: UAA 3
Notes: UAA has won six of the last eight meetings, including last year’s 70-62 victory in Billings ... UAA leads 13-4 in GNAC regular-season meetings since MSUB joined the league in 2007-08 … MSUB is UAA’s 2nd-most common opponent (71 meetings) … teams met at least twice per season each year between 1981-82 and 2000-01 as members of the Great Northwest and Pacific West conferences ... first meeting was in 1977-78.
THE SERIES vs UAF: UAA leads 76-22
In Anchorage: UAA leads 43-5
Last Meeting: UAA 100-91, OT (1/16/16 at UAF)
Streak: UAA 3
Notes: UAA has won 19 of the last 20 meetings, including a 74-72 victory in the first-ever meeting at the Alaska Airlines Center last year ... UAF’s 70-68 home win to close the 2013-14 regular season snapped UAA’s series-record 16-game win streak and marked the Nanooks’ lone triumph since 2007 ... seven of the last nine games have been decided by six points or less, or in overtime … UAA leads 23-6 in GNAC meetings (since 2001-02) and 46-10 since 1990 … teams have met at least twice each year since both became NCAA Div. II programs in 1977-78.
BORDER SERIES: Coming off a pair of narrow home losses, the Seawolves bounced back nicely by sweeping the Western Washington/Simon Fraser road series for the second straight season, with a 108-105 double-OT win at WWU on Feb. 4 and a 86-66 win at SFU on Feb. 6 ... in Bellingham, Jr. G Suki Wiggs racked up 33 points (15-20 FT), 10 rebounds, 4 assists, 3 steals and 2 blocks, Sr. G Brian McGill had 31 points (2-4 3FG, 15-15 FT), 2 assists, 3 steals and no turnovers in 47 minutes, and Jr. F Corey Hammell had 13 points (3-4 FG, 7-7 FT) and 15 rebounds to help the Seawolves overcome a huge late rally by the Vikings ... Jr. G Spencer Svejcar added 17 points, including the eventual game-winning three-pointer with under a minute left in the second OT, and Sr. F Christian Leckband had 5 points, 6 rebounds and no turnovers in 41 minutes – one of five Seawolves to play at least 39 minutes in the contest ... on Saturday, McGill scored a career-high 34 points (11-15 FG, 1-1 3FG, 11-11 FT) and tied his career high with 4 steals, while Wiggs tallied 20 of his 24 points (12-17 FT) after halftime to help UAA remain unbeaten in 15 all-time meetings against SFU ... Hammell had 10 points (3-5 FG, 4-4 FT) and 10 rebounds, Leckband added 8 points and a career-high 11 rebounds, and Fr. G Damien Fulp had 3 assists, a steal and no turnovers in a career-high 25 minutes.
TEAM NOTES: UAA has clinched the program’s 11th straight winning season and the 33rd in 39 years … having clinched a berth last week, the Seawolves have now qualified for the GNAC Tournament each year since the event was instituted in 2011 ... the Seawolves have clinched their sixth straight winning record in GNAC play and are looking to extend the same streak of top-4 finishes ... at 8-0, UAA had its second-longest unbeaten start to GNAC play in the league’s 15-year history, trailing only the 2007-08 Final Four squad that won its first 11 league contests ... the Seawolves’ 9-game winning streak tied for the 6th-longest in program history and was the longest since winning 10 straight early in the 2011-12 campaign ... the Seawolves rose two spots to No. 7 in the D2SIDA NCAA West Region poll this week (see pg. 5) ... UAA ranks 2nd in the NCAA Div. II national stats with its .803 FT pct., along with top-40 marks scoring margin (17th, +12.1), assist/turnover ratio (23rd, +1.41), rebound margin (24th, +6.2), scoring offense (34th, 85.4 ppg), and fewest turnovers per game (36th, 11.5) ... UAA leads the GNAC in both scoring margin and FT%, along with top-3 league ranks in rebound margin, rebound defense (2nd, +32.8), 3FG% (3rd, .368) and offensive rebound pct. (3rd, .336).
SUKI SMOOTH: Jr. G Sekou ‘Suki’ Wiggs has made a strong push for All-America honors in his first season since transfering from Div. I Idaho, leading the GNAC in scoring (23.3 ppg, 8th nationally) and defensive rebounding (6.2 drpg), along with league ranks of 3rd in rebounding (7.2 rpg), 5th in steals (1.5 spg), 8th in assists (3.6 apg) and 8th in A/T ratio (1.4) and 3rd in minutes (34.2 mpg) ... Wiggs set UAA and GNAC records by scoring at least 20 points in 21 straight games – both overall and to start a season; although the NCAA does not keep official records on streaks, Wiggs’s 20-plus string is known to be the longest in Div. II since at least the 2011-12 season ... the former Seattle O’Dea High star started early by setting the CCA Div. II Tip-Off Classic single-game scoring record with 34 points against Cal Baptist on Oct. 31, and he tallied a combined 50 points, 12 rebounds and 6 assists in UAA’s 2- and 4-point wins over Chaminade and Hawaii Pacific in November ... more recently, Wiggs posted his sixth double-double with 33 points and 10 rebounds in UAA’s 108-105 double-OT win at Western Washington, 8 Seattle Pacific ... with five 30-point efforts already, Wiggs has become just the seventh Seawolf with that many in a career ... he has already broken UAA’s season records for FTs made (188) and attempted (246), while his scoring average is No. 3 all-time; in raw numbers, Wiggs is 10th in points (594) ... in late November, he earned GNAC Player of the Week and GCI Great Alaska Shootout all-tourney honors after breaking the 38-year-old tournament’s scoring record with 98 points, surpassing the 97 by Purdue legend Glenn Robinson from 1993; Wiggs tied for the 2nd-highest scoring game by a Seawolf in Shootout history with 35 in the opener against eventual champ Middle Tennessee, and he led the tourney in scoring by more than 10 ppg, becoming first player to tally at least 30 in all three games ... the Preseason All-GNAC selection was a double-digit career scorer in two seasons at Idaho, winning the Western Athletic Conference’s Sixth Man of the Year as a freshman in 2013-14.
HAMMELL TIME: Jr. F Corey Hammell has shown why he averaged a double-double last season at Santa Rosa Junior College, leading the GNAC and ranking 11th nationally with 11 such performances ... Hammell is 3rd in the nation in offensive rebounds per game (4.3) and is 16th in rebounds per game (10.0) ... the Californian is on pace to become the fifth Seawolf to average a double-double and the first since Peter Bullock in 2002-03 ... Hammell is also on pace for one of the most productive free-throw campaigns in program history, getting to the line 180 times in his first 25 games and ranking 7th in the GNAC with a .822 FT%; he had a streak of 27 in a row from Nov. 28-Dec. 14, and he enters the MSUB game with a current streak of 16 straight ... the 6-6, 225-pounder leads the GNAC by nearly three rebounds per game and ranks 20th in scoring with 12.5 ppg ... with 17 points and 17 rebounds against NNU on Dec. 5, Hammell grabbed the most boards for a Seawolf since 2009 and matched UAA’s program-best in a GNAC game (Bullock, twice, 2002-03), while his 19 points and 17 rebounds at Concordia marked his fourth ‘15/15’ outing ... overall, Hammell has 13 double-digit rebounding efforts, including five games with 15-plus.
B-MAC IN TOWN: Sr. G Brian McGill has given the Seawolves a huge boost since rejoining the lineup on Dec. 31, scoring double figures in 11 of 12 contests and leading the team with 3.8 assists per game ... McGill earned his third career GNAC Player of the Week honor after exploding for 65 points (18-33 FG, 3-5 3FG, 26-26 FT) in the recent road wins at Western Washington and Simon Fraser, including a career-high 34 points and 4 steals at SFU ... in the GNAC-only stats, he ranks 5th in scoring (17.9 ppg), 8th in FG% (.523), 8th in assists and 2nd in FT% (.944), boosted by his school-record FT efforts at UAF (16 of 16) and WWU (15 of 15) ... the Oregon native is connecting at a .703 FG% from inside the arc, including the game-winning layup at Seattle Pacific with 5 seconds left ... McGill has scored double figures in 30 of his last 40 outings dating to last year, including 11 times with 20-plus ... the former Western Oregon transfer moved up last week to No. 2 on UAA’s career lists for assists (372), and he needs 40 more points to move into the top 15 in scoring (currently 18th with 1,069 pts) ... on UAA’s other all-time lists, he is 15th in scoring average (15.3 ppg), 6th in FTs made (282), 12th in 3FG% (.421), 8th in FT% (.847) and 7th in FTs per game (4.0) ... a 2015-16 Preseason All-GNAC pick, McGill garnered All-GNAC Second Team honors in 2013-14 and was honorable mention last year.
TERRIFIC TRANSFERS: Junior college rivals for the past two seasons, Jr. G Diante Mitchell (Western Nebraska CC) and Jr. G/F Spencer Svejcar (Laramie County [Wyo.] CC) have been critical additions to UAA’s starting lineup this year, combining to average more than 23 points and 5 assists per game, with both shooting over 85 percent from the foul stripe ... Svejcar was an NJCAA All-Region IX First Team selection as a sophomore, and the Colorado native has tallied double figures in 18 of 25 games as a Seawolf, including 22 points (7-13 FG, 4-6 3FG) at UAF, 18 points (8-9 FT) against Chaminade, and 18 points (7-11 FG)/5 assists against Western Washington ... after starting the year 20 of 70 (.286) from 3FG range, he has nailed 31 of his last 63 (.492), including the game-tying trey at UAF to force overtime and the game-winning trey at WWU in double-OT ... Svejcar leads the GNAC in FT% at .870 (McGill has not played enough games to be eligible), along with other league ranks of 17th in scoring (12.9 ppg), 8th in 3FGs per game (2.0), 15th in 3FG% (.383) and 19th in assists (2.3 apg) ... a former NJCAA Academic All-American, Mitchell ranks 3rd in the GNAC in 3FG% (.460), along with 2nd in FT% (.852), 12th in assists (2.9), and 12th in FG% (.500) ... the Utah native had perhaps his most solid week in UAA’s GNAC-opening wins over CWU and NNU, totaling 41 points (15-20 FG, 6-8 3FG, 5-6 FT) and 10 assists ... Mitchell has been out of the lineup since injuring his ankle Jan. 21 against Saint Martin’s; he is questionable for the UAF game.
LECKBAND TOGETHER: Sr. F Christian Leckband is the most experienced Seawolf on the roster, with his 108 career games now tied for 10th in program history ... coming off the bench in 24 of 25 contests this year, he has improved on his career scoring (9.6 ppg from 5.3 ppg) and rebounding (4.4 rpg from 3.2 rpg) averages, boosted by his 21 points against Simon Fraser, 16 points against MSUB and 11 rebounds at SFU ... Leckband currently ranks 16th in the GNAC in FG% at .489, while on UAA’s other career lists he is 36th in scoring (730 pts–needs 7 to reach top 35) and 19th in 3FGs made (109) ... the Nome native has 11 double-figure scoring efforts this year, plus 12 games with at least 5 rebounds.
UNSUNG HEROES: Fr. G Damien Fulp is among several Seawolves who have made unsung contributions of late ... a former Colony High star, Fulp had his highest-scoring GNAC effort with 7 points against Seattle Pacific last week, and he had 3 assists and no turnovers in a career-high 25 minutes at Simon Fraser on Saturday ... Jr. F Travis Parrish has played mistake-free ball as well, conributing 4 points (2-2 FG), 2 rebounds, 2 assists and no turnovers in the double-OT win at Western Washington ... Jr. F/C Tayler Thompson is shooting a sizzling .679 (38 of 56) for the season, making 9 of his last 11 shots ... Thompson scored a career-high 11 points (5-6 FG) and grabbed 6 rebounds in the Jan. 23 win at Concordia.
BERG SIDELINED: UAA suffered a blow Nov. 6 when So. F Sjur Berg suffered a broken elbow in the Seawolves’ home opener ... following surgery, Berg is expected to miss the rest of the season ... the Norwegian ranked second on the team (15th GNAC) last year with 5.2 rpg and was averaging 7.0 rpg through the first three games this year.
THE OSBORNE FILE: Now in his 12th year as head coach, Rusty Osborne (226-126) has now led the Seawolves to 11 straight winning seasons, along with five NCAA Tournaments and a trip to the 2008 NCAA D-II Semifinals in his tenure at the helm … with UAA’s victory over Alaska Fairbanks on Jan. 10, 2015, he became the first UAA basketball coach to reach 200 career victories … Osborne captured his first career GNAC and NABC West District coach-of-the-year awards in 2008 after becoming the second coach to lead UAA to three consecutive NCAA berths (2006-08), and in 2011-12 his Seawolves posted a 24-10 record to equal the 2nd-most victories in program history; Osborne’s 2007-08 club holds that record with a 29-6 mark … before taking over the head job in 2004-05, the Texas native previously served 13 seasons (1991-04) as a UAA assistant, including 11 years as the top assistant … the Seawolves have won over 60 percent of their games with Osborne on the staff, claiming four conference titles and eight trips to the NCAA Division II Tournament. Osborne is assisted in 2015-16 by Cameron Turner (5th season) and Kasey Riley (1st season).
SEAWOLVES TABBED 4TH: The Seawolves were picked to finish fourth in the 2015-16 Great Northwest Athletic Conference preseason coaches’ poll, released Oct. 15.
2015-16 Great Northwest Athletic Conference
Preseason Men’s Basketball Coaches’ Poll
Rk Team (1st-pl. votes) ‘14-15 Records Pts
1. Western Washington (5) 20-11/11-7 (t-5th) 114
2. Western Oregon (4) 23-7/15-3 (1st) 106
3. Seattle Pacific (2) 24-8/13-5 (2nd) 100
4. Alaska Anchorage 16-13/12-6 (t-3rd) 92
5. Central Washington 17-9/12-6 (t-3rd) 80
6. Alaska Fairbanks 7-19/4-14 (8th) 63
7. Saint Martin’s 6-22/3-15 (t-9th) 41
Montana State Billings 5-23/3-15 (t-9th) 41
9. Northwest Nazarene 14-16/11-7 (t-5th) 37
10. Concordia, Ore. 25-7 1st Yr in GNAC 32
11. Simon Fraser 11-15/6-12 (7th) 20
(Votes awarded on 11-10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1 basis)
Nate Sagan
Assistant Athletic Director for Media Relations
University of Alaska Anchorage
3211 Providence Dr.
Anchorage, AK 99508
(907) 786-1295 / nate@uaa.alaska.edu
GoSeawolves.com
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