SEATTLE – The Seattle Pacific men’s basketball team didn’t have a lot of information about Cal State Bakersfield. The Falcons knew that the Roadrunners were very quick, and that they could shoot. They knew they’d see a trapping zone that would force SPU to make good decisions.
Apparently, that information was enough.
Seattle Pacific handled Bakersfield’s defensive quickness, and kept the Roadrunners off of the line, and now it’s headed to the regional championship game. The Falcons defeated Bakersfield 81-75 in the semifinals of the NCAA Division II West Regional Tournament Saturday at Royal Brougham Pavilion.
Top-seeded Seattle Pacific (24-5), ranked No. 10, plays No. 16 Western Washington for the region title at 7 p.m. Monday. The second-seed Vikings (23-6) beat Chaminade 101-91 behind the 29 points of Grant Dykstra in Saturday’s other semifinal. Kamiak graduate Tyler MacMullen scored 20 points, went 9-for-12 from the floor and grabbed 11 rebounds and former Mount Vernon standout Tyler Amaya added 19 points and eight rebounds for Western, which split its regular-season games with SPU.
The West Regional winner advances to the Elite Eight on March 22 in Springfield, Mass.
SPU had little tape on Bakersfield (21-8) and went by what it could gauge from the Roadrunners’71-65 quarterfinal win over Sonoma State. In that game, Bakersfield made 11 3-pointers, shot 16-for-16 from the foul line, had 12 steals and held Sonoma to 36.7 percent shooting.
But the numbers – and the result – show that SPU was prepared enough. The Falcons shot 54.3 percent and allowed the Roadrunners to shoot just 13 free throws.
“They’re so quick,” SPU coach Jeff Hironaka said. “The key was spacing and trying to get the ball to the middle. It wasn’t always perfect, but we were able to handle it well enough to win the game.”
Seattle Pacific led for nearly the first 25 minutes before Tim Barnes sank back-to-back 3-pointers to give Bakersfield a 46-44 lead. Another Barnes three made it a five-point advantage before Falcons senior Mike Bushmaker scored five-straight points to tie it at 54 with 12:21 to play. For the next 11 minutes, neither team led by more than five points.
The Falcons led 73-71 with 1:14 to go when Lynnwood graduate Drew Matzen sank a pair of free throws. Bushmaker, a 6-foot-7 senior reserve, then blocked a putback attempt by Bakersfield’s Richard Andrews and Binetti made two free throws to make it 77-71 with 42 seconds to go and the Roadrunners got no closer than four the rest of the way.
“Mike blocked it, we got the loose ball and that was huge,” said Binetti, the Great Northwest Athletic Conference Player of the Year who had 15 of his 22 points in the second half.
Bushmaker had 15 points and was 7-for-8 from the field. Robbie Will had 14 points and nine rebounds, Dustin Bremerman had 12 points and Matzen had eight points and nine rebounds for SPU.
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