It was just another weekend at the office for the Carleton Ravens men’s basketball team Jan. 25 and 26.
Playing back-to-back home games against the York University Lions and Laurentian University Voyageurs, the top-ranked team in the country picked up two convincing wins to push its record to 15-1 on the campaign.
Carleton began the weekend by hammering the lowly Lions (5-10) in a contest that was over almost before it began.
Led by rookie guard Connor Wood—who came in off the bench and shot the lights out with 32 points—the Ravens led by a whopping 63-19 at the half. While the visitors did manage to find more success on the offensive end after coming out of the locker room, the damage was done.
“Offensively I was shooting it well, but on defence I could have done a bit more,” Wood said.
“As a team, we definitely need to do a bit better on defence. Overall, we looked pretty good.”
“Pretty good” was an understatement—the Ravens went on the collect a 106-62 victory.
Back in action 24 hours later, the Voyageurs gave the Ravens a fair test. But in the end, Laurentian simply didn’t have enough to stay with the home side, falling 90-66.
When guard Philip Scrubb hit a three on the first trip down the floor, it looked like it was going to be a long night for the Voyageurs. But the visitors—who were coming in after a big road win over the University of Ottawa on Friday night—kept things close throughout the opening half.
While the Ravens eventually ran out convincing winners, the Voyageurs trailed by just six midway through the second quarter, before eventually going into the locker room down 44-32.
“They’re a good team, they have a lot of weapons and they can really score,” Ravens head coach Dave Smart said after the game, while also adding that the Voyageurs forced his team to “work so hard on the defensive end.”
Come the second half, the Ravens began to show off a few offensive weapons of their own, namely, former Canadian Interuniversity Sport (CIS) player of the year Tyson Hinz, who led the team with 22 points and eight rebounds on the night.
The 6’6” forward opened the second half with a three right in front of the Ravens bench, as both his teammates and the crowd erupted. It was the perfect way for the home side to start the half, and they carried that momentum all the way to the final buzzer.
With the Scrubb brothers—Philip and Thomas—combining for 35 points, Carleton just proved too much for the visiting Voyageurs, who were led by a game-high 25 points from guard Alex Ratte.
The Ravens will now have some time to recharge after playing four games in one week. But despite the heavy schedule, Smart was not willing to use fatigue as an excuse.
“I don’t think that’s fair because they played last night against Ottawa and four of their guys played really big minutes,” he said, referring to four Laurentian players who each logged at least 28 minutes on the floor.
“So the fatigue probably affected them more than it affected us.”
Carleton will be back in action on Feb. 1 when they make the trip to Kingston for a date with the Queen’s University Golden Gaels.
