The Carleton Ravens men’s basketball team welcomed the Toronto double-header last weekend, winning 118-61 against the University of Toronto Varsity Blues on Jan. 25, and losing to the Ryerson University Rams 74-78 the following night.
Playing two divisional rivals—The University of Toronto Blues and Ryerson Rams—the games were critical match-ups for the Ravens squad, with implications of the games possibly factoring into final season rankings.
University of Toronto Varsity Blues
While it could have been potentially overlooked, the Varsity Blues game was not going to be an easy game to win, per coach Dave Smart the weekend before.
The game, however, did not turn out to be a critical match-up, with Carleton winning by a wide margin 125-60.
Ravens starting point guard and commonwealth games alumnus Munis Tutu broke it down to a changed mindset.
“We knew what kind of game it was last time, so we came in really focused. We emphasized defence all week,” he said.
The Varsity Blues were noticeably without their leading scorer from the past game—first-year guard Iñaki Alvarez, whose career-high game was the soul of U of T’s near upset.
The Ravens after opening up a big lead, used their starters and OUA leading scorer Eddie Ekiyor sparingly.
Ekiyor played only five minutes the whole game, seemingly being reserved for the marquee match-up against Ryerson.
This saw much action from the bench players, something appreciated by Tutu.
“We know if we do our thing in these kind of games, that the young guys like [Aiden Warnholtz] are going to come in and finish up for the win,” Tutu said.
Having just finished the game Tutu was already focused on the coming match up against Ryerson starting point guard Myles Charvis.
Ryerson University Rams
The weekend’s key matchup was highly anticipated against Ryerson, as the game was played in an over-capacity Ravens Nest crowd.
Both teams needed no introduction. As the top two teams in the OUA East this season, the Ravens edged out the Rams earlier this month in the teams’ first meeting.
The game delivered good basketball in spades with the nation’s two best teams both fully invested wielding back and forth.
The game began swimmingly for the Ravens with guard Yasiin Joseph and forward Marcus Anderson hitting threes early, on similar-looking swing plays.
However, the Rams trio of Filip Vujadinovic, Myles Charvis, and Jean-Victor Mukama were not to be outdone, hitting three-pointers and three-point plays of their own.
Charvis scored a difficult three with a foul on Munis Tutu giving him the tough four-point play. Charvis’ scoring electrified his bench and silenced the uneasy home crowd.
The Ravens rallied and received scoring from all of their eight-man rotation with guard Isiah Osborne looking his most comfortable since he joined the team this season. Osborne converted on back-to-back isolation looks to end the first quarter.
On the other end of the court, however, the Ravens were without Anderson for most of the first half after he got into early foul trouble.
The turn-of-events was similar to their previous match against Ryerson earlier this month, where the Rams were able to mount a comeback once Anderson left the court.
With Tutu also on bench after picking up his second foul of the game, the Ravens found themselves in similar circumstances after giving up 10 straight points to end the half. They went into the locker room down 40-36 to end the half.
The second half was an electric one, beginning with a gut-punching run by the Rams to increase their lead to 15.
The Ravens tried to look for a spark to rally, but could only shorten the margin to 10 points.
The home crowd, unused to trailing during the season, groaned as the struggling Anderson fouled guard Jayden Frederick as he shot a three. Frederick failed to convert any of his free throws from the play.
The Ravens found their ignition after a T.J. Lall jumper and a seismic block from Ekiyor shotput the Ravens back into the game. As they drew closer, the crowd reached deafening levels cheering them on.
Head coach Dave Smart directed traffic, calling Ekiyor’s number again and again.
Ekiyor took the responsibility thrust upon him and registered eight points in less than three minutes.
Carleton narrowly pulled ahead as the final minutes approached, an ice cold one-on-one lay-up by Charvis slowed the Ravens flock.
After a Ryerson timeout, Isiah Osborne completed a trio of three-pointers, giving Carleton back the five-point lead.
Into the last three minutes, the game was tied and the lead exchanged back and forth in front of an increasingly stressed Ravens fanbase.
The decisive moment came with 33 seconds left, when Fredrick hit a three to pull the Rams ahead.
The Ravens trusted Joseph with the ball with 20 seconds to go, but his shot fell short and the Ravens were handed their first regular season loss since February 2016.
After the game, Anderson briefly commented on where he thought the loss came from.
“We came out soft, a lot of weak points we need to improve on,” Anderson said. “We need to be better . . . defence, hitting shots when they’re open and pure confidence. We need to work on that.”
Charvis was ecstatic after the win, pointing to the changes in his team’s mindset.
“Just matching their intensity, when we’re at home they came out and they gave us a 12-0 push to start. Today, we fought tooth and nail the whole game.” Charvis said.
“Honestly, we were saying just stay the course, basketball is a game of runs and we knew they were due for one. We just stuck it out and came out with the win,” he added. “We repaid them the favour of beating us on our home floor and it feels good to do that.”
With both teams ranked in the U Sports Top 10 power rankings, it is more than likely this won’t be their last meeting this season.
“I mean it’s just natural, we see them every year [at the OUA finals],” Ryerson head coach Roy Rana said. “They’re so good—it’s more than likely you’ll see them if you want the chance to play for a bigger prize, unless something crazy happens.”
“I sure do hope it’s another one like this,” he said.
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Photo by Tim Austen
