PHOENIX – When Bryce Drew was hired to replace Dan Majerle as coach at Grand Canyon last March, the Lopes were not in a great spot.
The 2019-20 season saw GCU suffer its worst season since becoming a Division I basketball school in 2013, a 13-17 overall record and 8-8 mark in the Western Athletic Conference. Majerle, who guided the program through its transition to Division I and is beloved by Phoenix Suns fans, was fired because of the poor results.
That opened the door for Drew, whose last coaching stop hadn’t gone any better than Majerle’s final season at GCU. In Drew’s final season at Vanderbilt in 2018-19, the Commodores won only nine games and were 0-18 in conference play. He was fired at season’s end.
But Drew’s first season at Grand Canyon provided important firsts, and some big surprises.
The Lopes won their first WAC Tournament title and with it, the school’s first NCAA Tournament bid. And the Lopes did it in a season in which their in-state foes Arizona State (which began the year as a Top 25 team) and Arizona (a staple in March Madness) surprisingly missed the Big Dance entirely.
“It’s been a tough year. Just a lot of things thrown at us this year,” ASU coach Bobby Hurley said.
For the first time in school history, THE LOPES ARE GOING DANCING!! ?? pic.twitter.com/OHVcIVlRga
— Grand Canyon Men’s Basketball (@GCU_MBB) March 14, 2021
It all seems fitting in such a strange season, not just for Arizona teams but around the college basketball world.
Duke and Kentucky both missed the tournament for the first time since 1976. Oregon State won the Pac-12 tournament for the first time in school history. Rutgers is making its first NCAA Tournament appearance in three decades. And Georgetown completed a stunning run to the Big East Tournament title by dumping Creighton in the championship game.
No wonder uncertainty reigns supreme ahead of this year’s NCAA Tournament.
Here’s how GCU and the five Pac-12 schools in the field of 68 – Oregon State, UCLA, Oregon, USC and Colorado – fared during a season defined by a global pandemic and where they begin their NCAA tournament journeys.
GCU
Grand Canyon may have entered the 2020-21 season as a relative underdog, but the Lopes had no trouble reaching their first ever NCAA Tournament.