Three wins in three days.
That’s what it will take for the Seattle University men’s basketball team to earn its first NCAA tournament berth since 1969.
The Redhawks (20-11, 11-7) got one of four first-round byes in the first round of the Western Athletic Conference tournament as the No. 4 seed in the conference.
They open play in the tournament — taking place in Las Vegas — in the quarterfinals, playing Grand Canyon, which defeated Texas Arlington 82-77 on Tuesday — at 2 p.m. Thursday. The Redhawks defeated the Lopes in both previous meetings this season.
Seattle University needed to win its regular-season finale to get that fourth seed, and it did that with an 80-56 win over Texas Arlington. That it happened Friday on Senior Night, with Riley Grigsby and Emeka Udenyi being honored, made it even more special.
“We wanted to have a good night for Mek and Riley, we wanted to get that four seed, and to get to 20 wins was big for the program, so there was a lot of positives that came from that,” said Seattle U coach Chris Victor.
The victory also was important in erasing any bad thoughts from Seattle U’s previous game, a 93-56 loss at Utah Tech, which finished 12th in the WAC in the regular season.
After starting the WAC slate 7-0, the Redhawks were inconsistent. For example, they won on the road at WAC regular-season champion Utah Valley, but lost by 15 points at home to Abilene Christian, which finished seventh in the conference.
“When we prepare the right way, and we have the right mentality going into games, we can beat anyone in the conference,” Victor said. “Then we’ve also proven that when we’re not prepared and not ready to play, we can lose by 20 to any team in the conference. So we’ve been focusing a little more on ourselves.”
Victor said he is confident that “lessons have been learned” in the team’s losses and that the Redhawks will be ready to play their best.
“Going into a game, we know that we can control our effort, we can control our communication, and we can control, for the most part, our defense and our rebounding,” Victor said. “Those are the things that we want to make sure that we’re taking care of.
“But at some point, someone’s going to have to make some shots. You might win one game ugly. But you don’t win three games in a row against these teams that we’re going to play without multiple guys playing well on the offensive end and making some shots for us.”
Reaching the NCAA tournament has been the goal since the Redhawks began the transition back to Division I 15 years ago. Victor believes he has a team that can achieve that elusive goal.
“We play well against the top teams in this conference and we’ve shown we can beat anyone in this conference,” Victor said. “So if we get to the point where we play three games well in a row, we can beat anyone in this tournament.”
Seattle U women reaches quarterfinals
The Seattle University women got their biggest win of the season Monday, with an 80-78 win over Texas Arlington in the first round of the WAC tournament.
The Redhawks (6-23), who lost their first 11 games of the season, are the No. 11 seed. Texas Arlington (14-17) was the No. 6 seed and won 75-49 at Seattle U three weeks ago.
Seattle U plays No. 3 seed Grand Canyon (20-9) in the quarterfinals in Las Vegas at 8 p.m. Wednesday.