CIS HOOPS: OUA EAST DOMINATES POWER RANKINGS, KANATA HOOPSTER CLOSES IN ON SCORING CROWN

Here's the kind of weekend it was for our basketball teams of interest from the 613:

• The Cheers RPI rankings at Bob Adams CIS Sports Page have five OUA East teams among the top 12 in the country: Carleton at No. 1, Ottawa at No. 5, the University of Toronto at 8, York at 11 and the Queen's Golden Gaels 12th (despite a four-game losing streak).
  
  Mark Wacyk's CIS Hoops.ca has Carleton at No. 3, Ottawa No. 6, and Toronto and York in the ninth and 10 slots. Let's see how closely that's reflected when the coaches' poll comes out tomorrow afternoon.
  
  Carleton and Ottawa are locked into the top two playoff seeds, so Saturday's Canal War at Montpetit Hall will just be pre-playoff posturing -- they may do it again in two weeks' time in the OUA East with a trip to Halifax at stake.
  
  The Gaels, who finish up with a home-and-home against RMC, are headed to Toronto for a quarter-final playoff game on Feb. 21 -- against either U of T or York, who are tied for third. The Varsity Blues have the tiebreaker edge on York.
  
  On Saturday: The Gee-Gees dealt Queen's its fourth straight loss, 75-62, with Josh Gibson-Bascombe hooping 14 points and sharing the team lead in steals with former Ernestown Eagles star Donnie Gibson (each had three.) Mitch Leger was Queen's top scorer with 21 points.
  
  Give Carleton coach Dave Smart some credit for not letting a bad situation get out of hand. The Ravens beat RMC 83-28, but the halftime score was far more telling -- 53-8. Ryan Bell and Stu Turnbull (13 points) were the only Ravens regulars who played more than half the game.
  
  Friday: Jeanty had 19 points in the Ravens' 74-55 victory over Queen's, who was without point guard Baris Ondul (hamstring) during the entire weekend. Gibson, who has been called the "silent assassin" by his coach Dave DeAveiro, had a career-high 21 points -- shooting 6-of-9 from downtown -- in Ottawa's 89-56 win over RMC.
  
• WOMEN'S HOOPS: Laurentian forward Cassandra Carpenter, an Earl of March alumna, needs 14 points in the Lady Vees' regular-season finale against York on Wednesday to edge out Windsor guard Dranadia Roc for the OUA scoring title. Fourteen points would maintain the lead Carpenter (20.71 points per game) has on Roc (20.36), whose team is finished for the season.
  
  That York-Laurentian result is of interest here since the Queen's Golden Gaels need a Lady Vees loss and a win over last-place RMC to finish second and earn a first-round playoff bye. The Gaels' got the Laurentian loss they needed (the Lady Vees fell 72-69 to Toronto) on the weekend, but lost 56-53 at home to Ottawa and remained one game back.
  Navan's Tina Ethier had a team-high 15 points to help lead the Gee-Gees to the upset and send them into their first-round playoff game next Saturday vs. Toronto on a bit of a high. Jessica Selinger had 16 for the Gaels, but 14 of that came before halftime.
  
  Friday: Sarah Barnes had 22 points -- including a clinching steal-and-layup -- and 10 boards in Queen's 58-54 win over Carleton. Ines Jelic had 17 for the Ravens, who could visit Kingston again on Saturday for a quarter-final playoff game against the Gaels.

That's all for now. Send your thoughts to neatesager@yahoo.ca.