Grand Canyon loses in WAC Tournament semifinal

LAS VEGAS — New Mexico State basketball coach Chris Jans didn't bite when asked about the comments made by another coach the previous day. Sam Houston's Jason Wooten talked about his quarterfinal opponent Grand Canyon saying he thought the Lopes were the best team in the Western Athletic Conference.

It might have been a case of a coach just crediting a team to whom his team just loss but it was an interesting comment nonetheless. GCU was only the fourth seed for the tournament and NMSU is the perennial powerhouse and entered as the top seed.

Those teams squared off in semifinal play Friday night at the Orleans Arena and it was the favored Aggies taking down their familiar foe Grand Canyon, 75-70.

"I wasn't in the room. I have no idea was the context was," Jans said, playing down that motivational factor. "I thought they were the best team in the league. So who knows?"

Players didn't bite either.

"We just go out and play and let the game speak for us," Jabari Rice said. "We're not worried about that. We don't feed into that. Coach teaches us better than than that."

The showdown between GCU and NMSU was the third meeting between the teams this season and it was the Aggies winning both of those by double digits.

For the better part of 30 minutes it looked like the most important showdown was headed that way too with the Aggies leading by as many as 14 points at 64-50 with 9:47 left.

But GCU (23-8), which won the tournament and made its first trip to the NCAA postseason in 2021, did not go quietly and eventually cut the deficit to four at 69-65 on a 3-pointer by Gabe McGlothan with 3:08 to play.

He later nailed a pair of free throws with 2:21 left to make it 71-67.