TULSA, OKLA. -- Azusa Pacific's run through the NAIA Championship Tournament came to end Saturday night at the hot hand of No. 4-seeded Georgetown, which bounced the Cougars, 94-76, in semifinal action at the Mabee Center.
Georgetown shot a blistering 65% (32-for-49) from the floor and then made sure Azusa Pacific was ice cold at its own offensive end, forcing the Cougars to miss 53 shots (4 more than Georgetown attempted).
The Cougars missed their first 9 shots of the game and found themselves in a 10-0 hole just over 4 minutes into play. It proved to be too much of a hole for the tourney's top-seeded Cougars, who saw their school-record 17-game winning streak come to an end.
"We came out a little too excited," said head coach Bill Odell. "We had too much adrenaline and were more excited than tight. We didn't do a great job on weakside help. We tried to move around with the ball and wear them down, but they kept hitting their shots."
Tiger guards Barry Bowan (5-for-7) and Anthony Holt (8-for-11) combined for 42 points and 13-for-18 shooting with each tallying a game-high 21 points. Center Will Carlton, a 6-8, 225-pound sophomore transfer from University of Utah, handled Georgetown's inside game, registering 20 points and a game-high 16 rebounds.
Micah Sullivan led Azusa Pacific with 13 points. Nate Getz added 12 points and a team-high 7 rebounds. But none of the Cougars' top 8 players made half of their shots. In fact, the Cougar starters were a combined 17-for-52, including a 5-for-19 clip from the 3-point arc.
Azusa Pacific rallied to within 6 (51-45) on a Bryan Lucas free throw with 13:11 in the game. However, Georgetown went on a 22-10 run, thanks to 9-for-10 shooting, to assume a commanding 73-55 lead with 6:15 left to play. From there on the Cougars played a desperation offense and missed 13 of 15 3-pointers over the final 5 minutes of the game.
"Whenever we made a run, they were hitting their baskets and we couldn't make up the hole," said Cougar guard T.J. Walker, who finished with 11 points and a game-high 6 assists and engineered a Cougar offense that committed a season-low 8 turnovers.
Azusa Pacific made just 14-of-38 (37%) shots in the first half and was out-rebounded 19-12 in the first 20 minutes of play. The Cougars found themselves down by 10 (42-32) at the half and it could have been more had the Tiger offense not been slowed by its own 10 turnovers.
Azusa Pacific, which is an unprecedented 6-time Golden State Athletic Conference champion, ends its season at 34-5, the best record in the program's history and is the only team in Azusa Pacific history to advance to the NAIA championship semifinals. Georgetown improves to 35-3 and advances to the NAIA national championship game for the third time in its history. The Tigers will meet Southern Nazarene University on Monday (March 23) at 5 p.m. (PST).
