UAA Athletics

Seattle Pacific beats UAA men’s basketball team with late bucket

Seattle Pacific scored the game-winning basket with 2.5 seconds left Thursday night to grab a 65-64 win over the UAA men’s basketball team at the Alaska Airlines Center.

It was a missed opportunity for the Seawolves. A victory would have put them in a fourth-place tie with Seattle Pacific in the Great Northwest Athletic Conference. Instead, they slipped into fifth place, two games behind the Falcons and Western Oregon, who share third place.

Gavin Long scored the game-winning bucket after grabbing the rebound of teammate Coleman Wooten’s missed free throw.

“We did a lot of things well tonight, but that was negated by not blocking out on a free throw at the most critical juncture of the game,” UAA coach Rusty Osborne said in a press release from the school.

“This is a disappointing loss, but we’ll have to recover quickly and focus on another excellent opponent coming to town Saturday.”

The Seawolves host 19th-ranked and league-leading Saint Martin’s on Saturday night.

Thursday’s loss came despite 26 points from Tyler Brimhall and a couple of clutch baskets down the stretch from Brennan Rymer.

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Of course, every bucket in the back-and-forth second half was big. The teams traded the lead 13 times and were tied 12 times.

Rymer twice beat the shot clock in the waning minutes. He beat the clock with a 3-pointer at the 4-minute, 30-second mark to give UAA a 59-56 lead, and he did it again with 65 seconds to go with a short jumper that put UAA up 64-62.

Long hit one of two free throws with 54 seconds left to trim UAA’s lead to 64-63. Brimhall, who was 6 of 8 from 3-point range, missed a triple 30 seconds later and Wooten got the rebound for the Falcons.

Wooten went to the free throw line with seven seconds left and missed the front end of a one-and-one. Long came up with the rebound and banked in the game-winner.

Rymer put up a 35-footer that bounced off the rim at the buzzer.

Brimhall’s 26 points, which came on 10-of-17 shooting, marked the sixth time this season he has scored 25 or more. Rymer and Jack Macdonald both finished with 11 points and Rymer added seven assists for UAA (12-9 overall, 7-6 GNAC).

The Falcons (12-6, 9-4) got 14 points and eight rebounds from Wooten and 15 points from Nikhil Lizzotte. Long, who had one rebounds and was 1 of 6 from the field before his big rebound conversion, finished with six points and two rebounds.

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