ANCHORAGE ? McCade Olsen made two free throws with 1.7 seconds left to lift the nationally 4th-ranked Alaska Anchorage men's basketball team to a 56-55 victory over Seattle Pacific in the NCAA Division II West Region Championships on Saturday at a sold-out Wells Fargo Sports Complex.
UAA (27-5), the top seed, will meet 7th-seeded Brigham Young-Hawaii in Monday's 7 p.m. regional title game.
Olsen finished with a game-high 22 points on 8-of-15 shooting, while fellow senior forward Carl Arts had 19 points, five rebounds, four assists and three steals as he played the entire 40 minutes.
SPU (21-8), the No. 5 seed, got 15 points and eight rebounds from senior center Rob Will, who gave the Falcons a 55-54 lead with 18 seconds left on a short jump shot.
The Seawolves called timeout at half court and were fouled twice by the Falcons ? who had fouls to give ? in the ensuing seconds, giving UAA an inbounds play on the baseline with 3.7 seconds showing. Point guard Luke Cooper lobbed the ball to Olsen, who made a fake and rose for a 17-foot jumper in front of Will, drawing the foul on the SPU big man.
After an SPU timeout, Olsen ? UAA's best free throw shooter at 81 percent ? bounced the first charity around the rim three times before dropping in, then swished the second. Without any timeouts, the Falcons were able to advance the ball about 50 feet to Will on the inbounds pass, but his long try bounced high off the backboard.
SPU, which also got 12 points and four assists from senior forward JoJay Jackson, had been one of just two Division II teams to beat the Seawolves this year, taking a 65-58 decision in Seattle on Mar. 1.
SPU's biggest lead in the first half was 16-10 and the Falcons took a 28-25 lead to the locker room when guard Chris Banchero (7 pts) went coast-to-coast for a layup at the buzzer.
A Will layup extended the visitors' advantage to 36-29 early in the second half before the Seawolves made their surge. UAA took its first lead in 20 minutes when Cooper drained a three-pointer from the wing with 14:31 remaining, making it 38-37. The home team held its advantage between two and six points for the next 10 minutes, going up 52-46 on a Cooper layup with 4:18 left.
Consecutive layups by Will ? SPU's first-team All-Great Northwest Athletic Conference standout ? cut it to 52-50 before Arts knocked down a fadeaway jumper at the 2:49 mark.
The Seawolves came up empty on their next three possessions, however, allowing SPU to take the lead again on Will's late basket.
It was a bizarre victory for the Seawolves, who got all of their points from just four players. Cooper, the GNAC Player of the Year, had nine points (4-7 FG) and five assists, while fellow Aussie guard Kevin White scored six points (2-2 FG). Third-leading scorer Chris Bryant (13.9 ppg) was shut out in just 14 minutes of action, while fellow starter Cameron Burney didn't score but grabbed a team-high eight rebounds.
The victory gives UAA ? the GNAC regular-season champ ? its furthest advance in the NCAA Tournament since reaching the 'Sweet 16' in 1993. It is the first consecutive victories for UAA in NCAA play since winning four straight to reach the national title game in 1988.
Monday's West Region title game will be shown live in Anchorage on KCFT FamilyNet Channel 35 (GCI cable 19) and video-streamed for free at GoSeawolves.com. The game will be a rematch of one of the best non-conference affairs in the West this season when UAA beat then-No. 11 BYU-Hawaii 95-90 in double overtime, Dec. 17 in Laie, Hawaii.
