The first-seeded Carleton Ravens men’s basketball team eliminated the eighth-seeded Acadia Axemen by a score of 82-64 at the Canadian Interuniversity Sport (CIS) national championships March 9 in Halifax.
In the middle of the third quarter, the Acadia-friendly crowd at the Halifax Metro Centre roared as the Axemen crept within four points of tying the quarter-final matchup.
Because the Ravens went undefeated this year, the scary moments against the Axemen might have helped the team psychologically, according to Ravens head coach Dave Smart.
“It’s hard to be undefeated,” Smart said. “I mean everybody wants to beat around the bush, but it’s hard. We’ve never done it, and we may never do it.”
The Ravens’ offence fell off a cliff in the third frame, but Smart stayed positive.
“This game really helped, because we hit a wall,” Smart said. “I think we hit that, ‘I’m scared, we’re going to lose’ and then all of a sudden Elliot [Thompson] just started knocking down threes. He couldn’t do a thing right until all of a sudden he hit rock bottom, and then when he hit rock bottom he tore the game up. Maybe that scare was as good as a loss for us.”
The Ravens came out strong out of the gate against the Axemen, outscoring them by a score of 27-11 in the first quarter. Third-year forward Tyson Hinz put on a clinic for the Ravens in the opening frame, scoring 12 points, grabbing four rebounds and outscoring Acadia single-handedly.
“[Hinz] really was special today,” Smart said. “I mean [Philip Scrubb] obviously has great talent and made some good shots, but [Hinz] really was the only guy who kept us settled when we were struggling with the zone. It’s the first time we’ve really struggled with the zone all year, and we finally just said ‘Let’s get the ball down to him and let’s play from there.’”
Hinz cooled off in the second quarter, but Scrubb picked up where he left off. The recently named CIS player of the year went on a 14-point tear, draining four of his seven three-point attempts in the quarter.
Acadia took the third quarter by a score of 22-11 as Carleton’s shooting, which had been hot for the first two quarters, seemed to melt away.
“We weren’t playing very well,” Scrubb said. “They hit some shots and we weren’t very comfortable on offence. I thought once we pretty much got to our lowest point and we were done, we started to hit some big shots and the bench got excited and the guys on the floor started playing pretty well.”
Thompson struggled in the opening three quarters, only scoring four points in his 13 minutes of play. However, in just nine minutes of play in the fourth quarter, the fifth-year guard scored 12 points and drained four threes, going 50 per cent from beyond the arc in the final frame.
“The guy who changed it was the guy who really struggled for the first 35 minutes of the game,” Smart said. “So maybe, that was a step in the right direction for us.”
“There was a point in the fourth quarter and the second half where, I mean, it could be your last game,” said Thompson, who is graduating at the end of the year. “I think I was playing a bit tentatively the first half, and it’s kind of, ‘Do you want to go out being tentative, or do you want to go out being the aggressor?’ It’s kind of a mentality that our coach breeds in us, and once you get away from that, as you can see, team will take advantage of it.”
Thompson said games like this can prepare the team for what’s to come.
“[These are] the eight best teams in the country,” he said. “You’ve got to expect a close game. Acadia won the [Atlantic University Sport], and I think they should’ve been ranked higher than eighth so we knew we were going to get a battle right away.
“Every game from here is going to be a battle so we have to be prepared.”
With the win, the Ravens move on to face the University of Fraser Valley Cascades in the semifinal tomorrow at 5 p.m. EST.
