The Carleton Ravens made fools of us of all.
In January, when they lost twice in five days -- remember the Tut offensive, that 61-22 donkey of a first half that the York Lions pinned on them in their own gym? -- it could have been suggested that the Ravens were careening toward the so-called Dynasty Wall. Nope. They beat York in the playoff rematch, setting up last night's OUA East final against the only other team to beat them this season, the Ottawa Gee-Gees.
Thirty-three minutes into the game in front of 2,000 fans at the Ravens' Nest (plus a live TV audience on Rogers, made larger by the stakes and the Senators having a night off), they seemed to be leaking oil again. Senior star Oz Jeanty was 1-for-7 from the floor. Maybe he would finally end up with some egg on his face for the "five championships in five years" vow he made coming out of high school.
About 25 minutes in real time later, of course, Jeanty had taken over and spurred the Ravens to a 65-63 win over quite possibly the best U of O team in recent memory. Now it's off to their unofficial springtime home, the Halifax Metro Centre, to play for a fifth CIS basketball title in a row in the March 16-18 Final 8. With any luck, the No. 5 Gee-Gees (28-5 overall) will be confirmed as the wild-card team when that's announced next Sunday. As for the Ravens, it's tempting to say that having finally beat Ottawa, the rest will be easy.
Following the game by e-mail (much obliged to the U of O' s and Carleton's respective sports information directors John Bower and David Kent and CIS Hoops.ca editor Mark Wacyk for their help), it looked like the Gee-Gees might be on their way when they reeled off a 12-0 run to end the half, going ahead on Donnie Gibson's three at the horn.
Apparently, there was simply no way, no how that Carleton loses a game to go to the Final 8 on its home floor two years in a row. Ryan Bell, who's kind of the typical Raven who does everything well within a team concept and makes shots when called on, went 3-for-4 on threes, his only shots of the night. The Kingston-area kids Stu Turnbull and Aaron Doornekamp had 17- and 12-point nights to complement Jeanty's 15.
Josh Gibson-Bascombe (15 points) was the Gee-Gees' lone man in double figures. That doesn't happen often for Dave DeAveiro's team.
The Ravens held high-scoring Ottawa without a basket for almost seven minutes in the second half -- topping a five-minute freeze-out in the first 20 -- and it's damn near impossible to overcome that against any opponent. Ottawa still tied it up with four minutes left. Fifth-year senior Alex McLeod had a deep three to take the lead in the final minute hit the back iron, but you know how it typically is with Carleton. The Ravens don't need to get much of a grip on a game to wrest it away, no matter who they're playing. Give them enough chances, they'll figure out how to beat you.
WILD-CARD COMPASS POINTS EAST, NOT WEST
The Ravens will be on the road for Saturday's Wilson Cup championship vs. the Windsor Lancers, who trounced McMaster 75-58 in the OUA West final to clinch their first trip to nationals in a quarter-century. The Gee-Gees should get the wild-card berth, which won't be announced until one week from today after Atlantic and Quebec conferences play their respective finals.
It needs to be said: The No. 6 Victoria Vikes (one spot below Ottawa) played themselves out of contention even before losing the Canada West bronze-medal game last night 82-77 to the Saskatchewan Huskies.
From a pure stats viewpoint, the Vikes' case was already weak. Last night was UVic's 10th loss -- two more than Carleton and Ottawa combined. Prior to last night, the Vikes hadn't lost to an unranked team, but almost did at Christmastime when a 35-footer at the buzzer enabled them to beat Queen's at their home tournament. Not to put too much emphasis on a game played two months ago, but what does it say that they nearly lost on their own floor to the fifth-best team in the OUA East, who was playing three time zones away from home?
Throw in falling behind 24 points to Brandon in a 93-79 loss in Friday's Can West semi, and that should seal UVic's fate. The Citizen's fine basketball writer Wayne Kondro pointed out Saturday that the CIS has a knack for "ludicrous" wild-card picks due to a badly designed selection process (coaches make the picks, supposedly* leaving the door open to provincialism and politics). In this case, there's no way Victoria can get the wild card over the team it just lost to, Saskatchewan, and there's no way a 20-15 Huskies team who's 13th in RPI can be taken ahead of Ottawa.
The only catch is if No. 2 Concordia is upset by Laval in Friday's Quebec final. Concordia's 4-0 vs. Laval with an average winning margin of 11 points (one game was a two-pointer), so that is unlikely.
(* UPDATE, 11:55 a.m. March 5: The word supposedly seems appropriate after exchanging e-mails with a CIS head coach. The point was that the process can be open to provincialism and politics, but it doesn't necessarily happen. It's kind of similar to how in major-league baseball, the managers pick the Gold Glove winners in each league; one year Rafael Palmeiro ended up winning at first base after playing less than 30 games there. Anyway, to the coaches, sorry for the confusion. That's regrettable.)
(Full disclosure: There is a self-interest here in seeing both of the capital's teams advance to the national championship, but as for Ontario bias, remember who helped give voice to the beef that Canadian university football's Hec Crighton Trophy has become the OUA Leading Rusher Award?)
That's all for now. Send your thoughts to neatesager@yahoo.ca.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment