The Carleton Ravens men’s basketball team defeated the University of Saskatchewan Huskies on March 12 by a score 90-50 in Canadian Interuniversity Sport (CIS) Final 8 quarter-final action at Mattamy Athletic Center in Toronto.
The Ravens’ defence was air-tight early on, as they didn’t allow any field goals and only 10 points from the struggling Huskies in the first quarter.
CIS All-Canadian Phil Scrubb ended the quarter with a bang after a four-point play giving the Ravens a 28-10 lead.
“When Phil’s shooting the ball like that he makes it easy, we still have to do the same things defensively and rebounding-wise, but he makes it easier,” Ravens fifth-year guard Victor Raso said.
The Ravens’ defence continued to dominate, only allowing three points against halfway through the second quarter.
The Huskies struggled throughout the second, giving up critical turnovers.
Once again it was all Phil Scrubb on offence, who finished the half with a whopping 29 points.
“I just felt confident with my shot and started hitting shots early,” he said.
The Ravens led the Huskies 48-18 at the half.
Despite not looking it on the court, Ravens head coach Dave Smart said he was pleased with how his team was playing.
“I thought we defended really well and I thought we reacted well to what their gameplan was,” Smart said.
The Huskies began to show some life in the third quarter, as Forbes knocked down some tough shots.
They had their best quarter scoring 21 points, but still found themselves down 72-39 going into the fourth. The Huskies acknowledged that they were not as prepared for this game as the Ravens seemed to be.
“Obviously they’ve established a program that’s at an elite level and they were far better prepared to play us than we were to play them,” Huskies head coach Barry Rawlyk said.
The fourth quarter saw rookies Mitchell Wood, Sheldon McIntosh, and Mitch Jackson take the court. The Ravens’ defence held strong again, only allowing six points halfway through the quarter as their offence continued to score despite not having any starters on the court.
Although the Huskies seemed to find a rhythm against the young Ravens, their efforts came far too late.
Phil Scrubb was named player of the game after finishing with 31 points, while his brother Thomas finished with 18.
After such a dominating performance, Philip Scrubb attributes the effort put in to the regular season the Ravens had.
“It’s a little different since we lost two games this year, and that’s a little extra motivation coming into this weekend. We know we can lose and we’ve got to play hard,” Philip Scrubb said.
Despite the lopsided victory Thomas Scrubb still said the Ravens need to be better for the upcoming games, where the competition will be far stronger.
“We need to do a bit better job rebounding, against UVic (University of Victoria) we’re going to play against another big guy so we need to make sure they can’t dominate around the boards,” he said. “In the second half they put up a bigger lineup and we need to be prepared for that for our next game.”
The Ravens will play again Saturday at 6 p.m. against either the fifth-seeded Dalhousie Tigers or the fourth-seeded University of Victoria Vikes.
