CIS CORNER: NOW, IF BRANDON LOSES...

Not that you would expect anyone with either program to admit it, but you have to wonder how much attention Carleton Ravens and Ottawa Gee-Gees coaches and players will be paying attention to the Canada West Final Four which begins Friday in Brandon.

The winners of Friday's semis in the Wheat City -- No. 6 Victoria vs. No. 1 Brandon and No. 4 UBC vs. unranked Saskatchewan -- will punch their tickets to the Final 8. If Brandon or UBC go down and end up in the conference's bronze medal game, that could be the de facto play-in game for the wild-card spot some people may have assumed will go to the loser of Saturday's OUA East final between the No. 3 Ravens and No. 5 Gee-Gees.

It says here the Final 8 selection committee would be nuts not to want two teams from the OUA East since it's the best conference in the country according to the Cheers RPI. Here's the Top 10 in RPI, with the teams still alive in the OUA East and Can West playoffs in bold:

1. Carleton
2. Concordia (likely Quebec representative)
3. UBC
4. Ottawa
5. Brandon
6. Victoria
7. St. FX
8. Toronto (eliminated from playoffs)
9. Windsor
10. Cape Breton

OUA East awards: Accolades to the Gee-Gees' Dave DeAveiro and Ravens' Osvaldo Jeanty were respectively named the division's top coach and most valuable player, while Gee-Gees guard Alex McLeod is its nominee for the Ken Shields Award (outstanding achievement in basketball, academics and community involvement).

Gee-Gees guard Josh Gibson-Bascombe and Ravens point forward Aaron Doornekamp joined Jeanty on the first team; McLeod and fellow fifth-year Gee-Gee Curtis Shakespeare were second-team picks. Queen's leading scorer and rebounder Mitch Leger and Carleton's Mike Kenny were selected to the all-rookie squad.

Since this blog seems to be landing on every college and university's e-mail list, so just a quick note that there's another collegiate basketball championship being decided this week in Ottawa -- the Algonquin Thunder are hosting the Fanshawe Falcons at 8 p.lm. Thursday. Kingston's St. Lawrence Vikings play Toronto's Sheridan Bruins in the 4 p.m. game; the final goes at 8 on Saturday.

Here's hoping St. Lawrence coach Tom Turnbull's team fares better than his Ernestown Eagles did in the Kingston-area senior boys championship 11 years ago yesterday. On Feb. 26, 1996, the valiant Eagles, the scourge of bigger urban high schools, lost the KASSAA final to Bayridge and had some second-string SOB who was only on the team as an act of charity not only miss an open layup, but of all the rotten luck, get his own rebound and miss that too.

Whatever happened to that SOB? Hope he wasn't marked for life. Wink.

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