SURPRISE, Ariz. – No. 6 Hope International shot 53.6 percent from the field in a 76-64 victory over OUAZ to clinch a share of the Great Southwest Athletic Conference regular season men's basketball title on Saturday at Faith Arena.
It is the program's third regular season title. The Royals won the outright title in 2014-15 and 2016-17.
Freshman Aman Haynes led the Royals with 17 points off the bench. He made 8 of 9 floor shots and pulled down a game-high eight rebounds.
Jorren Edmonds hit 6 of 9 shots, including a pair of three-pointers, and finished with 14 points, five assists and three steals. Nick Hopkins added 12 points on 5 of 6 shooting to go along with seven rebounds.
The Royals shot just 24.0 (6 of 25) percent from distance, but that did not matter as the team made 24 of 31 field goals on two-point attempts.
HIU had a rough start to the game, falling behind 28-15 at the 9:43 mark in the first half. The Spirit knocked down eight three-pointers to build the lead – four by Zeke Viuhkola and three more from Jerry Johnson – and OUAZ hit nine of its first 14 shots overall.
After going 8 of 13 from distance, OUAZ managed to shoot just 1 of 14 from beyond the arc the remainder of the game.
HIU roared back on a 11-0 run to cut the deficit to 28-26, as Edmonds scored the final five points during the burst. JD Davis got fouled on a three-point attempt and sank all three free throws to tie the score at 32-32. After falling behind by 13 points, HIU outscored OUAZ 22-6 to take a 37-34 lead into halftime.
OUAZ shot just 32.1 (9 of 28) percent in the second half, while HIU hit 51.6 (16 of 31) percent of its shots.
CJ Fisher threw down a dunk to open up HIU's first double-digit lead at 49-39 with 14:32 remaining. The lead fell below double digits just once the rest of the game, and Haynes completed a three-point play to give the Royals a 63-50 cushion with under eight minutes to play.
Haynes scored 11 of his 17 points over the final eight minutes as the Royals cruised to victory.
HIU is the No. 2 seed in the GSAC Tournament. Although the Royals tied Arizona Christian for the regular season title with identical 13-3 records, the Firestorm earned the top seed by winning the head-to-head tiebreaker in their season sweep of HIU.
The Royals host third-seeded The Master's in a semifinal game on Friday, February 27 at 7:00 p.m.
