The Carleton Ravens men’s basketball team rose to the occasion Wednesday night at the Ravens’ Nest, with a ticket to the Wilson Cup and the U SPORTS national championships at stake.
The Ravens blasted off for 17 straight points in the fourth quarter en route to an 80-65 OUA semifinals win against the Toronto Varsity Blues.
“Big expectations for this program, we haven’t been (at nationals) the past couple of years, so relieved and happy for our guys,” Ravens head coach Taffe Charles said after the game. “In the fourth quarter, I just think that we were deeper.”
The Ravens tamed an evolving beast in the OUA playoffs — the Varsity Blues — who entered the playoffs seeded 11th — upset top OUA competitors Western and Queens.
For Ravens guard Aubrey Dorey-Havens, the Ravens’ pressure is what squashed the Cinderella story.
Showing shades of the last time he matched up against the Varsity Blues, Dorey-Havens led the charge for the Ravens. The third-year guard picked up 19 points in the win and will be heading to his first national championships.
“Obviously, the job’s not finished,” Dorey-Havens said. “It’s honestly a big accomplishment, and we have to go and play three games (in Calgary) and get it done.”
Nationals will give his teammate Marjok Okado a homecoming trip, fitting the squad’s motto of “Get MJ Home.”
“You can’t script it any way better — it’s a blessing to be with the team and just get it done,” Okado said.
Okado set the tone early in the physical contest with a three. The senior guard finished 66 per cent from beyond the arc in limited minutes.
Although both squads earned quality looks in the opening frame, their defense-first mindsets — particularly in the paint — forced contested shots and prevented either team from building momentum.
In the second, three quick fouls within the first two minutes put pressure on the Ravens’ defense, leading to a 6-0 lead for the Varsity Blues, their first of the game.
The Ravens took it personally.
Carleton pressured the Varsity Blues into three consecutive turnovers in the defensive end, clawing themselves back into the game.
The Ravens didn’t stop there, galloping with an 8-0 run to steal the lead. Both teams traded leads until halftime, where Carleton led 35-32.
“It’s a game of runs, but that’s what basketball is,” Charles said. “There’s a lot of possessions, so you just got to keep playing.”
Both squads took turns chasing each other on the scoreboard with multi-point runs in the third quarter. The Varsity Blues held the lead until the dying seconds of the quarter, when Dorey-Havens set up Emmanuel Ngo Kana Suzama for a one-handed alley-oop to put the Ravens ahead by one.
“It’s just a deflator for the other team, and it got us boosted up a little bit,” Charles said. “We’ve been working on a lot of set plays for a while now, and we worked on that lob play.”
The alley-oop was just the start for the Ravens’ newly-kitted offense, which grabbed the bull by the horns in the fourth and played a completely different ball game.
Emanuel Milon kicked off the squad’s impressive 17-0 run with four quick points of his own. The Ravens ran their offense through Milon, whose multi-levelled scoring talents helped him to a 14-point outing.
Whether it was slashing their way to the rim, forcing major turnovers, or playing into the crowd’s electric energy, the Ravens cruised past their opponents, outscoring them 25-11 in the final quarter.
“It was electric in here, we love playing at home for that reason,” Dorey-Havens said, crediting the home crowd. “We’re so blessed to have that support as a team from the community.”
“We like being underdogs, and we’re gonna try and go there and get a banner,” he said. “There’s no external stuff, it’s just you, your team and the mentality of being on the road.”
After the Ravens women’s team took down the top-seeded Queen’s Gaels on Wednesday night, both teams will travel to face the TMU Bold on Saturday for a double-header OUA finals.
Tip-off is at 8:00 p.m.
“You just got to try and get as healthy as possible, everybody’s banged up at the end,” Charles said, emphasizing health a top priority in the coming weeks.
“Because if you want to win (the national championship), you got to win three games in a row.”
Featured image by Simon McKeown
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