For the seventh year in a row, the Carleton Ravens men’s basketball team will be playing with the W. P. McGee trophy on the line.
Although the Scotiabank Centre in Halifax looked half empty, the Ravens had some of their most dedicated fans in the building as the CU Red Zone traveled out to watch their team defeat the McGill Redmen by a score of 74-58.
Heading into the game, the Redmen were ranked 29th in offence, scoring 75 points per game, but second in defence only allowing 60.3 points per game this season.
“They’re a great defensive team,” said Dave Smart, Ravens head coach. “They took us out of our comfort zone and we knew it was going to be a grind it out game.”
The first quarter was a defensive battle with each team working for their baskets, but Carleton came out on top leading 18-13.
The second quarter was a different story as the Ravens began to take control, starting with Ravens forward Eddie Ekiyor, giving Carleton a 10-point lead after hitting two foul shots.
The Ravens didn’t stop there as Connor Wood knocked down shots from all over the court helping the Ravens go into half up 43-26 and leading all scorers with 12 points.
McGill started to make up for the deficit in the third quarter as they brought the game to within eight points with five minutes left.
“We got tentative in the third quarter, you can’t get tentative against a team that executes as well as them,” Smart said. “We had some struggles, we tend to play in spurts and you can’t keep getting away with that.”
This didn’t last long for the Redmen as Carleton went into the fourth quarter up 60-47, after a few foul shots and drives to the basket by Ravens point guard Kaza Kajami-Keane.
The Ravens continued to find success offensively as Wood started the fourth by hitting an open three, extending the lead to 16. The Redmen had a few runs, bringing the game to 12 points, but it wasn’t enough.
The two teams exchanged baskets at the end of the fourth, but the Ravens pulled further ahead, taking the win 74-58 and earning themselves a spot in the U SPORTS men’s basketball championship final.
Wood, with 20 points and five rebounds, was named player of the game for Carleton. He said he credited his teammates feeding the ball into the paint and getting rebounds for his successful play.
“When you got guys like Mitch Wood getting rebounds, they start to lose you, so you start getting open and that’s when I started getting the good shots,” Wood said.
The victory came in large part because of the Ravens rebounding and points in the paint as they out-rebounded the Redmen 41-34 and outscored them in the paint 28-16.
“We talked about the fact that playing them it was going to be one team or the other who was going to be frustrated over how hard the other team rebounded,” Smart said. “They’re probably the best rebounding team in the country if we’re not.”
The game was also an improvement for the Ravens in terms of turnovers, as they gave the ball up nine times against McGill compared to 21 times against Calgary in the quarterfinal.
Despite the improvement, Smart said there’s still work to be done in terms of handling the ball.
“We didn’t turn it over, which is nice,” he said. “We still were pretty fragmented at times in the offensive end.”
The Ravens will return to the Scotiabank Centre in Halifax N.S. to either play the host Dalhousie Tigers or Ryerson Rams in the finals on March 12, 1 p.m. EST.
Although the Ravens didn’t face the Tigers this season, Smart said they know how they play and understand it’ll be a tough environment playing the hosts.
With the possibility of facing Ryerson, the team that defeated the Ravens on their home court for the Ontario University Athletics championship, Smart said there is some concern.
“Flat out they’re better than us right now, they beat us up pretty good on our floor,” he said.
– Photos by Luke Carroll
