IRVINE, Calif. – The Chaminade University men's basketball team overcame a nine-point first half deficit to score a 69-65 win over Azusa Pacific in Thursday's first round of the Pacific West Conference Tournament at CU Arena on the Concordia University Irvine campus.
Sam Daly scored 12 of his 14 points in the second half while
Kiran Shastri also had 14 in the win.
Rohndell Goodwin added 11 points and six rebounds while PacWest Newcomer of the Year,
Austin Pope, ripped down 12 boards to go along with nine points.
Kuany Kuany had eight points while dishing out four assists with Daly, back after a one-game absence, adding seven rebounds.
"Our battled-tested seniors and Austin stuck together and really buckled down on 'd' and played Chaminade offense in the second half," head coach
Eric Bovaird said. "A really gutty performance by Austin and Sam."
The fourth-seeded Silverswords (18-10) will now get their third crack at intercity rival, Hawai'i Pacific University, in Friday's semifinal. The Sharks, who are the PacWest regular season champions, the tournament's top seed and No. 5-ranked team in the nation, swept the regular season series including an 88-80 win on Chaminade's Senior Night this past Saturday at McCabe Gym.
The No. 5-seeded Cougars, who ended their season at 16-15, were led by Connor Peterson's 25 points.
The 'Swords scored the first four points of the game on Pope buckets but APU responded with an 11-0 run to take the lead, forcing a Chaminade timeout. The Silverswords settled down, whittling the deficit back down to two, but Petar Kutlesic hit two jumpers and a Peterson triple gave APU its largest lead at 35-26 with 3:10 left in the half.
However the 'Swords responded as Kuany buried 3-pointers on back-to-back possessions late in the half to chop the Cougars' lead to 35-32 at the break.
APU opened the second half with a six-point advantage but the 'Swords became the aggressors as Daly drove the paint for a pair of layups then Goodwin hit a fade-away jumper along the right baseline to tie it at 40. The 'Swords then capped the 9-0 run on the next possession as
Dantley Walker drilled a corner 3-ball to give them their first lead (43-40) since early in the game.
Chaminade then went on a 14-3 run over the next seven minutes to grab its largest lead of the contest at 57-45 with 7:53 remaining.
With its season on the line, APU clawed back in the final minutes, closing to 67-65 with just a minute left. But Daly applied the dagger, draining a seven-footer from the right wing with 31 seconds left to make it a two-possession game at 69-65. The 'Swords then forced two errant 3-point tries in the final 20 seconds to hang on for the win.
The Silverswords shot nearly 44 percent from the floor, but made 51.6 percent of their second-half shots. Chaminade also hit 9-of-23 from 3-point range. They forced the Cougars to 41.4 percent shooting, including just 34.6 in the final 20 minutes, and 13 giveaways. Both teams had 39 rebounds. The 'Swords went to the line just six times with their first free throw attempts coming 28 minutes into the game.
However, Chaminade outscored APU 13-2 in bench points and 10-5 off turnovers.
The Silverswords improved to 6-1 in PacWest Tournament games since the tourney's inception in 2013. Friday's semifinal against HPU tips off at 7:15 p.m. Pacific (5:15 p.m. Hawaiian).
