Riley Grigsby kept his Seattle University men’s basketball team in the game in an ugly first half.
In the second half, he got plenty of help from star Cameron Tyson and others, as he Redhawks hung on for a 69-66 victory Thursday night at Climate Pledge Arena.
Seattle U improved to 13-4 and 4-0 in the Western Athletic Conference. New Mexico State’s uncharacteristic down season got worse as the Aggies fell to 7-10 and 0-5.
Twice, Seattle U seemed to have the game well in hand, but had to sweat out Marchelus Avery’s three-pointer at the buzzer. It missed.
“The win is the most important thing,” said Seattle U coach Chris Victor. “That’s the most important stat of the night. … Hopefully we can learn some lessons from it though.”
Seattle U led by 11 points with 2:09 remaining, but a 10-0 run cut the lead to one. Alex Schumacher made two free throws with 11 seconds left and when Avery missed, the Redhawks could finally celebrate.
“We just had turnover rapid turnover after turnover, which is very uncharacteristic for this group,” Victor said of nearly blowing what looked to be a safe lead. “I don’t know if we got up 11 and we took our foot off the gas or if we relaxed. But we need to do a better job finishing games, obviously.”
Tyson, scoreless in the first half, scored 11 points in the first 5 minutes, 15 seconds of the second half, helping lift Seattle U to a 43-33 lead after beginning the second half tied at 24.
“My focus was on defense and rebounding and I think that really helped my offense kind of take care of itself,” said Tyson, who scored 14 in the second half.
Seattle U looked like it might cruise from there, and led 58-44 with 6:09 left, but the Aggies scored 10 straight points in one minute, 32 seconds and suddenly the lead was down to four.
Three-pointers from Grigsby, who scored 27, and Tyson helped stall the threat, And a three-point play by Schumacher with 2:01 remaining pushed the lead back to 11 points at 67-56.
Once again, New Mexico State rallied with 10 straight points, but the Redhawks held on.
“Honestly, I was not nervous,” said Grigsby, who said he loves playing at Climate Pledge. “We just had to take care of the ball.”
Neither team will want to watch video of the first half.
How bad was it? There were more turnovers (19) than field goals (15) between the teams. You couldn’t have blamed Redhawks fans for wondering if their team was ever going to make a field goal.
The Redhawks trailed 5-2 at the first media timeout with 15:57 remaining in the first half. Their two points came on a pair of free throws from Grigsby.
It wasn’t any better at the second media timeout, with New Mexico State leading 12-5 with 11:20 remaining, with all of the points on Grigsby free throws. Considering Seattle U was 0 for 7 from the field at that point with seven turnovers, it was fortunate to be trailing by just seven points.
Schumacher finally broke the field-goal drought, converting a steal into a layup with 10:50 remaining in the first half to pull Seattle U to 12-9.
Getting the lead proved to be a bigger challenge. New Mexico State seemed to be beating Seattle U for every loose ball and when the Aggies got three straight offensive rebounds in one possession, Victor called a timeout with 6:09 remaining and his team trailing.
Seattle U returned from that timeout with better effort and it paid off, with the Redhawks going on a 7-0 run and taking their first lead at 19-18 with 3:08 remaining in the half.
The Redhawks took a three-point lead at 22-19 on a three-pointer, but it only seemed fitting when the half ended in a deadlock.
Grigsby had 14 first-half points for Seattle U, but didn’t get a lot of help. Perhaps the biggest surprise was Tyson, who entered the game averaging 20.9 points, missing all three of his shot attempts and committing four turnovers.
But Tyson rebounded in a big way in the second half against a New Mexico State team that has been dominant in the WAC for years.
The Aggies won the conference tournament last season, giving the team the WAC’s berth into the NCAA tournament for the eighth time in 10 seasons.
But the Aggies came into Thursday night’s game with as many conference losses as they had all last season, when they finished tied with Seattle U and Stephen F. Austin for the WAC regular-season title with 14-4 records.
Now, comes a much bigger test going for the Redhawks by this season’s results, a road game at WAC-leading Utah Valley. The Wolverines are 14-4 overall, 5-0 in the WAC and have won 11 straight games.
“These are the games you want to be playing in, two undefeated teams playing for first place for the conference,” Victor said. “That’s where we want to be.”