Anchorage Daily News

They are playing a friendly game of departmental one-upsmanship these days over at UAA, where the stakes, and the rewards, have risen from intramural to inconceivable.

First came word over the public address system at halftime of Monday night's men's NCAA Division II West Region championship game that the Seawolves women's basketball team had not only felled Goliath, but done so on the bully's home court. Undefeated, perennial powerhouse Seattle Pacific University was no longer without blemish.

UAA 50, SPU 44 -- with victory gained inside the Falcons' Brougham Pavilion in the Emerald City, no less. And so it's off to the Elite Eight for the green and gold women.

That announcement brought forth the loudest roar of the evening to that point from the standing-room-only crowd of 1,160 inside the little band box that is UAA's Wells Fargo Sports Complex.

And it put the ball, as it were, in the men's court.

Not to be outdone, they responded in kind, holding off resilient Brigham Young-Hawaii, 73-67, to punch their own ticket to the Elite Eight.

Holy hoops.

The Seawolves, both genders, turned this evening into Monday Madness.

Looks like one of these teams is going to have to bag a national title to get in the last word and seize inter-office bragging rights.

And looks like UAA athletic director Steve Cobb better break out his spreadsheets and figure out how to come up with some coin for his crew. Coaches who get to the Elite Eight -- and these journeys may extend to even more divine territory -- deserve some dividend, so women's coach Tim Moser and men's coach Rusty Osborne are owed.

That's for later, of course.

Back at the men's Marvelous Monday, the buzzer blared, the home crowd erupted and the chant of "UAA! UAA ! UAA!'' broke out in short order. Players screamed in delight. Then came the customary hugs, high fives and hoisting of hardware, and the cutting of the cords.

"Big night,'' beamed good-natured, good-ol-boy Cobb, reduced is this rare instance to few words.

The UAA men prospered by virtue of a deep bench (particularly Jeremiah Trueman), the ever-poised excellence of point guard Luke Cooper (11 assists) and the second-half resurrections of McCade Olsen and Chris Bryant, who each rebounded from first-half foul trouble.

Olsen, named Most Outstanding Player of the regional, spent 12 first-half minutes on the bench, saddled with two fouls. Trueman came in for the top-seeded team and furnished eight of his 10 points, making all three of his field goals and both his free throws in the first half.

Back on the court in the second half, Olsen played like a man whose honor and reputation were at stake, scoring 13 points and making four game-deciding free throws. Bryant likewise returned and added nine of his eventual 14 points.

And Carl Arts, the Seawolves' blue-collar grinder (14 points, 10 rebounds), bounced back from a poor shooting night to make a difference in the end.

He missed two free throws with 29.4 seconds left, rare a guy who entered with an 82.9-percent career average at the line. But he also saved a loose ball at the Seasiders' end with 16.6 seconds left, grabbing it as he headed out of bounds and firing it off the leg of BYU-Hawaii's big man Lucas Alves.

Orchestrating everything for UAA was Cooper, the amiable Aussie who spends breaks in play constantly wiping his fingertips across the bottoms of his sneakers, all the better to prepare him for rifling his exquisite passes.

All that was needed against aseventh-seeded BYU-Hawaii, which made that rating look like a typo. With Alves dropping 20 points and 10 rebounds on UAA -- "He's a handful,'' Arts said -- and Paul Peterson draining four 3-pointers, the Seasiders did not go gently.

"They showed a lot of guts,'' Cooper said. "It was never over until the end, and it never felt like it was over until the end.''

And when it was over, Cooper distributed compliments the way he dishes the ball -- to everyone, and right on the money. He lauded his team's depth, and praised Osborne, associate head coach Shane Rinner and assistant Bryan Weakley for their elaborate preparation of a team that is now 28-5.

His work was not quite done though.

As Cooper, Arts and Olsen prepared to enter a makeshift press conference, many of the other Seawolves headed into their nearby locker room, some carrying bottles of non-alcoholic bubbly.

"No spraying 'em in the locker room,'' Cooper told them.

After all, that locker room is their home.

Besides, for both UAA's men's and women's teams, this night generated a glorious goal grasped, just not the ultimate goal.

The opportunity for more celebrations lies ahead.

This column is the opinion of Daily News reporter Doyle Woody. He can be reached at dwoody@adn.com or at 257-4335.

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