Only the most faithful of Queen’s fans traveled the 2,856 kilometres from Kingston, Ont. to Edmonton, Alta. for the U Sports men’s basketball national championship.
There wasn’t much to put faith in on Saturday.
The Gaels, fresh off an upset 90-80 win in the quarterfinals on Friday, faced demolition on Saturday in the semifinals. The University of Saskatchewan Huskies used a laughable 28-3 run in the third quarter to advance to the championship game with an 86-60 win.
It’s the first trip to the gold medal game for the Huskies since 2010, when they won the championship in Ottawa. They’ll face either the Carleton Ravens or University of Alberta Golden Bears.
The win achieves the unthinkable for Saskatchewan. The last-place seed at the tournament, Saskatchewan snuck in as the Canada West bronze medalist. Their longtime head coach resigned just three weeks ago after he allegedly played offensive music and multiple players refused to play under him.
“Even outside of basketball … we’ve been through so much as a team,” said guard Marquavian Stephens, who scored a game-high 25 points. “We wanted to stick to our main goal, which is to get to the nationals … We’re so resilient.”
At nationals, it all came together. The Huskies met and surpassed the Ontario University Athletics (OUA) champion Brock Badgers. They went home, retooled and defeated Queen’s.
It wasn’t just a defeat—it was an annihilation. Only one point ahead at the end of the first quarter, Queen’s quickly fell apart in the second. Gaels star guard Cole Syllas took nearly 15 minutes to post his first field goal. By the end of the frame, Saskatchewan led by 14.
Then came the third quarter, an exhibition of momentum and dominance matched only in its sheer brute strength by Alberta’s second quarter against the McGill Redbirds in the quarterfinals. The Huskies scored 32 points. The Gaels had only eight.
Queen’s head coach Steph Barrie called the team’s rebounding “an atrocity.”
“We just didn’t have another gear to go to,” Barrie said. “Those guys played at the height of their abilities and they were really good. At the same time, we were really bad.”
Now, Saskatchewan will have the chance to do something no one thought was possible two days ago.
“We’ve been talking about this all year and now to actually get a chance to play in the national championship just means everything,” Stephens said. “We worked so hard to get here.”
In the championship, Saskatchewan won’t have it easy. In the Ravens, the Huskies will have to take on a team that has won 15 of the last 18 national championships. In the Golden Bears, Saskatchewan will be forced to deal with Saville Community Sports Centre, packed to the brim with fans.
“It’s gonna be really tough. Both of those teams are very, very good,” Saskatchewan head coach Chad Jacobson said. “They’re extremely well coached. They’re talented. It’s gonna be a hard matchup either way.”
Until the Huskies are defeated, the Cinderella run continues. Jacobson doesn’t care about the noise from people who said the Huskies wouldn’t be here.
“I’ll leave that for them to say,” Jacobson said.
Featured image by Spencer Colby.
