For the first time since its season-opening game in 2012, the Carleton Ravens men’s basketball team was defeated by a Canadian team—and this time the loss came on a much bigger stage.
After winning against the Windsor University Lancers to propel them to the championship game, the Ravens suffered a heartbreaking 78-77 loss at the hands of their cross-town rivals the University of Ottawa Gee-Gees in the Ontario University Athletics (OUA) Wilson Cup championship final in Toronto.
Gee-Gees guard Johnny Berhanemeskel hit a fade-away jump shot with less than a second left on the clock to win it.
Gee-Gees forward Vikas Gill said it felt good to get the monkey off his team’s back.
“Everyone always used to say we can compete with [Carleton], but now we actually have the belief that we can do it,” he said.
In a thrilling game dictated by back-and-forth action, Carleton built up a 10-point lead with less than four minutes to go when a Philip Scrubb three-pointer made it 75-65 for the Ravens.
The Gee-Gees quickly closed the gap every time the Ravens made an effort to pull away for good, and they proceeded to go on an 11-0 run to put them up by one with only 22 seconds remaining.
With the OUA provincial title on the line, Berhanemeskel knocked down a fade-away jump shot to put his team up by one with only half a second left.
On the inbound play, a cross-court heave deep into Gee-Gees territory gave Tyson Hinz an opportunity. His diving, quick-release shot missed the rim by only a few inches and ended the Ravens’ hopes of becoming Wilson Cup champions for the third consecutive year.
“I knew if I got it off I would have a chance, but I think it’s not necessarily the last few plays of the game that lost us the game,” Hinz said.
Ravens forward Thomas Scrubb said his team failed to win because they didn’t do well enough defensively and let it get too tight in the final stages of the game.
“Near the end, I guess we were afraid to lose,” he said. “We didn’t keep attacking at the end. Once we had a lead we tried to wait for the time to run out, and we gave them a chance to come back.”
The thrilling game marked the first time the Ravens lost to a Canadian team since Nov. 9, 2012, where Carleton was beaten 71-67 in the first game of last regular season on the road against the University of Windsor Lancers.
Since that loss, the Ravens went on a 55-game unbeaten streak in regular season and playoff games against Canadian Interuniversity Sport (CIS) competition, a stretch of dominance including wins at both last year’s Wilson Cup provincial crown and the national championship.
The only losses Carleton had during that stretch came in pre-season play against Syracuse University and the University of Cincinnati, two high profile Division-I teams in the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA).
As the top two seeds, there is potential for a rematch in the cross-town rivalry in Ottawa if both the Gee-Gees and the Ravens make the national championship final.
Both teams have to make it to the final first, and Carleton will begin its quest for redemption and its 10th national championship with its quarter-final game against McMaster University March 7 at 2:30 p.m.
Hinz said the only way to move past the loss is to use it as motivation for his team’s main goal all season long—winning the national championship.
“The good teams can obviously get motivated without losing a game,” he said. “We lost a game, so we want our revenge and we want to win nationals.”
