Credit Mike Kenny and Kevin McCleery, who probably don't see their names high up in many stories about the Carleton Ravens, for the No. 1-ranked team in CIS men's basketball knocking off the Ryerson Rams 86-64 last night.
Kenny drained a couple threes from the left corner toward the end of the first half, when the Ravens (10-0 in OUA play) turned into a close game into a laugher, 49-33 at halftime. He counted 12 points in just 15 minutes without scoring a two-point basket; something like that should have a nickname, like the Duke hat trick. McCleery, a second-year forward, also had 12 points and did a great job picking up the slack left after Aaron Doornekamp got in early foul trouble.
Doornekamp, the pride of Odessa, Ont., probably only got to play 11 minutes, and Rye's 6-foot-10 post player Igor Bakovic didn't play at all (either due to illness or injury, he seemed to be limping when he walked to and from the bench), so the big low-post matchup never materialized. The younger Bakovic brother, Boris, scored 21 points and kept Rye in the game, for a time. Carleton's all-everything guard Oz Jeanty had a player of the year-like night, going for 23 points on 7-of-12 shooting with seven rebounds, along with drawing a technical in the second half when Ryerson (3-7) came completely unhinged.
Overall, it was a decent exhibition of what makes coach Dave Smart's Ravens so good -- they play with intensity and force the other guys to boil over. There was a play late in the first half when guard Ryan Bell hustled back on a fast break and almost blocked a dunk attempt by Bakovic, who's only about four inches taller. It was an 18-point game, but Carleton wasn't going to give him the uncontested dunk, no way, no how. Bell was called for the foul, but he might have got in Bakovic's head, since he missed both of the free throws.
It would be understandable if that kind of hard foul on their star player hacked Ryerson off; the Rams just seemed PO'd early in the second half. It all came to a head when Kenny got clotheslined going up for a rebound and landed hard on the floor. That led to Smart and Ryerson's coach, Glenn Taylor, getting into a shouting match and both getting T'd up (all told, there were 42 fouls and six technicals, five on Ryerson). Before long, Carleton had opened a 33-point lead and both coaches were sending in the backups.
Mark Wacyk, meantime, has a good write-up on the Ottawa Gee-Gees' wild one-point win over the U of T Varsity Blues. Toronto's Mike Williams missed a one-and-one with no time on the clock, capping a second straight collapse by the U of T.
Accolades to the women's basketball Ravens for earning its second OUA win, 68-63 over Ryerson. Score a couple for J-schoolers: Susan Shaw-Davis, whose major is listed as journalism/law, had nine of her game-high 21 points in the third quarter, when the Ravens erased a four-point halftime deficit. Nice homecoming: Ryerson's top scorers on the night, Rebecca Cox (15 points) and Sarah Kirkpatrick (11), both hail from the Ottawa region.
WHAT ABOUT YOUR ALMA MATER, SAGER?
It's possible there might have been a weekend during my undergrad years when the Queen's Golden Gaels men's basketball and hockey teams each went 2-0 on the same weekend. It's doubtful, since those Tricolour teams were usually mid-pack teams back then. (Those years were spent in a "brown heavy haze," to quote Ricky Nelson, so it's not like I would remember, although somehow I remember that in '98-99, the hockey team tied six of their 13 home games. You'd think the current Aston Villa manager, Martin O'Neill, was coaching.)
There was a chance for the rare double after the hoops Gaels knocked off York on Friday and the hockey team scored a rare road win over the U of T. So what happened? The basketball team won (Mitch Leger had 20 points in a 76-66 verdict over Laurentian), but the shinny Gaels blew a two-goal lead in the third period against last-place Ryerson and settled for a 3-3 tie. In a penalty-filled game, Ryerson, who usually struggles to score twice in one game, somehow got two goals in the final 20 minutes. Gaels goalie Ryan Gibb ended up stopping 80 of 84 shots this weekend, which should merit consideration for some kind of player of the week.
Related:
CIS Hoops Blog
That's all for now. Send your thoughts to neatesager@yahoo.ca.
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