Courtesy of Grand Canyon Athletics
In Winston Gandy‘s first season as a head coach, there already have been a few surprises around each corner as his Grand Canyon team searched for its first win.
The most enjoyable surprise came Tuesday night, when he turned the corner of the Lopes locker room after GCU beat SMU 76-60 and was drenched by a celebratory shower from his players’ water bottles.
The Lopes have experienced a lot with each other through recent months but never winning against another team until their defense held SMU to 35.4% shooting to never trail again after 2-0.
“We all needed this,” Gandy said. “It was nice to reaffirm what we are doing. We were getting better even though it wasn’t showing in the win column.”
In their second home game at Global Credit Union Arena, GCU took down its ACC visitor with defense and depth while setting the program’s Division I-era record for rebound differential (plus 25 at 54-29).
Beyond graduate guard Ale’jah Douglas career-high tying 16 points and sophomore guard Chloe Mann’s 15 points, four other Lopes approached double-doubles: sophomore guard Julianna LaMendola (eight points, nine rebounds), senior guard Karley Johnson (seven points, 10 rebounds), senior forward Anisa Jeffries (eight points, seven rebounds) and freshman power forward Norah Moo (eight points, 11 rebounds).
Facing the program’s hardest nonconference schedule ever, the Lopes dealt with 19-point, first-quarter holes at South Carolina and Oregon but began to evolve with a sweet start at UC Santa Barbara that ended with a salty two-point loss.
That edge carried over to the team’s best practice of the season Monday and translated to SMU missing 20 of its first 25 shots Tuesday night.
GCU built a 27-11 lead in the second quarter when Douglas sparked the Lopes with five points and an assist during a 12-0 run.
“It means a lot to finally be on the other side of it,” said Douglas, the only returning rotation player from last season’s NCAA Tournament team.
“One thing I try to tell our team is to just give ourselves grace. It’s not going to happen overnight. Every practice, every game, we just have to figure out what adjustments we have to make.”
GCU committed 24 turnovers in the win, and four of them came when SMU cut the lead to 30-24 on 11 unanswered second-quarter points. But Douglas ended the first half with a four-point play, something Mann already had done three times in the season’s first two games. Douglas picked up most of her scoring on 11-for-13 free throw shooting.
As the Lopes won every quarter Tuesday night, their lead stayed at eight or more with GCU’s offense picking up and diversifying. Jeffries, Moo and freshman guard Ines Zounia each scored six third-quarter points as GCU pounded the paint with drives and boards.
GCU grabbed its most rebounds (54) since the 2021-22 season. Moo boarded 11 of those in 20 minutes.
“I know my role is hard work and effort,” said Moo, the Phoenix Pinnacle High School graduate who had her parents, siblings and grandparents at the game.
By the time Zounia added a curling drive from the corner and a reverse layup on consecutive trips, GCU led 66-46 despite Mann missing a large chunk of the half because of an injury. Mann returned to finish her third game of 15 or more points after posting three all of last season at Cincinnati.
“We were just taking the opportunities and trying to get better,” said Zounia, who is from France. “All of the team wanted to do good. It was only the first win. We’re going to have a lot more.”
GCU faced USC and Washington and scrimmages, opened the season with games at South Carolina, Oregon and UCSB and lost a home opener to Idaho State. The rotations have been long and the substitutions have been frequent for Gandy and an all-new coaching staff to figure out the right personnel mixes. that was an 11-player rotation Tuesday against SMU, which is led by Adia Barnes, who previously coached Arizona’s 2021 national runner-up team.
“We’ve gotten better every game,” Gandy said. “I’m really happy for them to see what happens when you stay disciplined and stay the course and get some success.
“I know it’s about wins and losses, but it’s not why I do this,” Gandy said. “I believe in what we’re doing. I believer in the players. I knew it was just a matter of time. It’s hard, but the players were more like, ‘I want to get this for you.’ ”
