HOOPS
- Gaels: Saturday's 94-71 win over Lakehead (it was a five-point game after three quarters) restores some of the excitement. Baris Ondul, the third-year guard from Istanbul, had a career night with 30 points in 24 minutes, making 6-of-8 threes. The announced attendance was double that of the previous night, which shouldn't be discounted.
It's really cold out. The Queen's hockey team was playing at the same time, Lakehead isn't a big rival or a name school like Carleton, and students are busy with term papers and exams. Regardless, the turnout (543 fans) was decent. Either that or they counted twice.
Nick DiDonato, who like Ondul also comes for a faraway, exotic place (Sault Ste. Marie), was also lights-out, hitting 4-of-5 three-pointers.
Seeing that the Gaels allowed 92 points a Friday's loss to McMaster was a bit of a shock, but they might have been due for a lapse after keeping a couple teams down in the 50s. Starting the OUA East portion of the schedule vs. Toronto and Ryerson on Jan. 4-5 will be tough. - Ravens: Give second-year guard Mike Kenny a nod for chipping in well during the Ravens' road wins at Brock and Guelph: 15 points in 29 minutes on 6-of-12 over the weekend, including a late basket that helped thwart a Brock comeback on Friday.
(Aaron Doornekamp averaged 18 points, nine boards across these two games... is it OK to mention that? The other Ravens forward from Odessa, Jacqui Snyder, contributed eight points to Carleton women's 53-41 win over Guelph despite playing just 11 minutes. - Gee-Gees: The U of O was probably due for this -- a 12-point loss at Brock
- Gaels: Queen's goalie Brady Morrison faced 47 shots in 47 minutes before leaving with a minor injury in Saturday's 5-2 loss to Trois-Rivieres. At that rate, he might have to sign on with the Frontenacs, who've made not helping the goalie an art form, just for an easy night. (Fat chance of that happening, of course, but the joke is worth it.)
According to the summaries, Morrison and Ryan Gibb faced 104 shots over two games this weekend. Don't miss the point, though: Queen's split this weekend, enough to stay in first place, one point ahead of Toronto (which had a big weekend) and two ahead of RMC.
It doesn't hurt the Gaels that they miss Lakehead in the New Year, while both RMC and Toronto play that team twice. They drew the long straw in the scheduling and travel to lowly Windsor instead. - Ravens: It's difficult to muster enthusiasm about the Big One and little three women's league, but credit Carleton for taking Saturday's rivalry game 2-1 in a shootout over the Gee-Gees, with rookie Amanda Mulhig beating the U of O. They've got the rivalry, isn't that enough? (All we want for Christmas is someone, anyone, to take a point off McGill.)
That 5-2 setback vs. U of T on Friday night could end costing the Carleton men (7-8-1) in an end-of-season tiebreaker scenario, since Varsity swept the season series. . - Gee-Gees: An empty weekend (4-3 loss at Toronto; 5-3 at Ryerson) really puts the Gee-Gees in a tight playoff race in OUA. They can go toe-to-toe with the top teams in the conference, but they're also in what shapes up as four-way fight for two spots.
The Gee-Gees must be cursing Senators owner Eugene Melnyk. The OHL team he owns, the Mississauga-St. Michael's Majors, carried Ryerson forward Brent Small for half a season a few years ago, meaning he couldn't go to the NCAA. So he's at Ryerson, where he had three goals on Saturday, giving him five in two games vs. Ottawa.
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Tonight's Gaels' games should be quite interesting. So far, the men's basketball team's been about as expected, in my opinion: they've won against most of the lower-level teams, but have had trouble with some of the better ones like Guelph and Windsor. Both the wins and losses have been close though (biggest margin yet was a 12-point win over basement-dwelling Laurier). They showed they could score last night against Mac, but the defence seemed to go a bit out the window. Tonight's Lakehead tilt, with both teams at 4-3, should be a good game to watch, but the UQTR hockey game will also be interesting, so I'm torn as to which one to go to.
Interesting stat: Gibb's currently #2 in the CIS in save percentage
(.940), but 16th in GAA (2.87). That tells you a lot about the Gaels' defensive efforts, even with my suspicion that the shot totals are somewhat inflated.
Yeah, all CIS stat-keeping is a bit dodgy sometimes...
The hoops Gaels are a better bet to win tonight, no? Trois-Rivières is a bit of handful for Queen's.
Yeah, basketball definitely has a better chance (unless it's the women's team, which seems to not have much of a chance most of the time). Lakehead's pretty much even with us in hoops, but UQTR's one of the top hockey programs. I've decided to go take in the hoops: would be nice to see us get a win in one of the last pre-winter break sporting events.
Morrison was actually injured in the third period and had to be helped off the ice. Hopefully he's not out for any significant amount of time, because he's been ridiculously good this year.
And that stat just shows that the Gaels give up a lot of shots. That's it.
It's slightly inflated - there's an early game where it's recorded that Gibb faced something like 65 shots, when in reality he faced maybe 40. That's what you get when you have randomly selected untrained goal judges doing it (also why they had a goal called back against McGill).
Thanks, Tyler... I was wondering about that since it said Brady played 47:18, and there was no obvious point where he would have come out of the game.
Assuming it's not serious, why wouldn't the Frontenacs ask him about playing for them over the holidays, other than the fact they might need to save every player card they have?
Rob Mailloux, who was a forward, did that in '98-99. He played for Queen's, but skated in a couple games with the Fronts as an O.A. player over the holidays.
Tyler, you keep crazier hours than I do... although none of us are in Neil Acharya's class in that department.
Oh, and Hawai'i must play Ohio State in the BCS title game. It's nine-out-of-10 they'd get creamed, but whatever, they're unbeaten.
Healthy dialogue is good isn't it? And sorry if I hit a sore spot ;)
On the subject of numbers: the 543 fans for basketball actually sounds about right. The gym was as full as I've ever seen it, which is great to see: however, part of the attendance was due to a community day promotion where they invited lots of kids' basketball teams to the game. Still a significant student turnout though. Ondul's 30 points are even more impressive considering that his minutes were limited due to some early foul trouble.
On the hockey shots: I wasn't trying to criticize the team too much. As a Canucks fan, I can definitely attest to the fact that it's possible to win when being consistently outshot. Just trying to show how important I think the goaltending (from both Gibb and Morrison) is to any success this team will have.
Oh, any Leafs fan knows from winning while being outshot... come back, Cujo! (OK, don't.)
I figured something had to be up promotion-wise for that size of crowd at Bartlett.
By the way, are the Gaels basketball teams going to be in a situation where they'll need a home court as the Queen's Centre goes up? What would they do, rent a high school gym?
No, the gymnasium...s? gymnasia? whatever... will be finished well before the rest of the Queen's Centre, at least by my understanding.
Of course, they were also telling us the arena would be done before Jock Harty would be torn down...
On hockey shots, anyone who watches the games knows that the number of shots Queen's gives up is misleading - unless you confuse shots with scoring chances. Shots are not by default scoring chances if you have average goaltending, and the Queen's defence has, even last year, succeeded because they give up a lot of shots but keep the vast, vast majority of them to the outside, where the saves are nowhere near as difficult. Scoring chances are generally equal between the Gaels and their opponents. If anything, the large number of shots is good to keep the goaltenders on their game (Ryan Gibb has said that to various school media about eight trillion times since he got here).
You're also very right about missing Lakehead, Neate - in fact, among the Gaels' western opponents are Windsor, who they get two games against in 08 - and guess who has the worst record in OUA hockey.
Oh, and according to the team website, Morrison's injury wasn't serious and he won't miss any time.
Yeah, I meant to mention they draw Windsor as their trip to the western outposts of the OUA... the Lancers are tied with the first-year team, UOIT, for last place with 7 points.
To be fair, they do draw Laurier and Waterloo to start the second half, which won't be the easiest weekend to draw points in.
Yes, but don't Toronto and RMC play those teams as well? Not to mention Ottawa and Carleton, who Queen's might also be fighting with for a playoff berth.
(Fun fact: Waterloo forward David Edgeworth's dad Randy was co-captain of Queen's 1978 Vanier Cup team.)
Yes, but Toronto still hasn't gotten its crushing from Western, and nor has RMC gotten its from McGill.
As for Carleton - just take a look at their second half schedule. York, Guelph, Brock, Concordia twice, UQTR twice, and McGill.
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