No one else was there. The Carleton University Ravens men’s basketball team had struggled so much in the paint the entire game, battling against a McMaster Marauders team they should have won handily against, but this was the Ravens’ moment.
Grant Shephard was the only one in the paint. He received the head-high pass, took two steps forward and leapt, bringing down all his weight on the rim. The ball fell through the net and the Ravens’ Nest erupted. Carleton led by 10 points.
It was the exclamation point at the end of a 26-5 fourth quarter, catapulting Carleton to an 82-68 win Saturday over the Marauders. But it masked a brutal first three quarters that threatened the Ravens’ chance of sweeping their opening weekend against McMaster and the York Lions, who they beat 97-66 on Friday.
Guard Aiden Warnholtz led Carleton with 30 points on Saturday while forward Grant Shephard had 20 rebounds. The performance from the two stars helped put the Ravens over the edge, but for a team that normally relies on a deep bench to wear down the opponent, the lack of depth is concerning to head coach Taffe Charles.
“It’s a massive concern,” Charles said. “People [have] got to get better. Aiden Warnholtz is not gonna save us every night.”
Carleton came out slow on Saturday, finishing the first quarter down by 13 points to McMaster and 1-for-8 on three-point attempts.
The Ravens’ desperation revealed itself in the final minute. Forward Elliot Bailey missed an easy layup, then a turnover on a pass from Shephard led to a bucket for McMaster. Warnholtz missed a rushed three-point attempt to avoid a shot clock violation.
As the team huddled on the bench between quarters, Charles threw his clipboard.
The three-pointer returned for the Ravens in the second, but they still trailed 43-37 at halftime. McMaster outscored Carleton by one point in the third quarter and entered the final 10 minutes up by seven.
“We’re not starting out in a panic like we should,” Shephard said.
With a new sense of panic and the spectre of a loss to McMaster inching closer by the minute, the Ravens finally took off in the fourth. Back-to-back threes from Bailey gave the Ravens a 68-65 lead, then Shephard’s electrifying dunk made the score 75-65. Eight and a half minutes into the quarter, Carleton had scored 20 points. The Marauders had scored two.
MBB | The Ravens are rolling and the Ravens' Nest is rocking! #10 Grant Shephard slams it home to extend the Ravens' lead to 10.
Q4
CAR: 75
MAC: 65 pic.twitter.com/iusH7EDDqd— Carleton Ravens Basketball (@CURavensBBall) November 6, 2022
“I’m really upset about the first three quarters and I’m really pleased about the last one,” Charles said. “Why do we have to get down so much to actually hold a team to five in the fourth?”
The tight win was jarring given the previous night’s easy victory against York. It also didn’t help that the University of Ottawa Gee-Gees, Carleton’s biggest rival in the Ontario University Athletics east division, beat McMaster by 30 points on Friday.
While some may make comparisons to uOttawa, both Charles and Shephard said they aren’t paying attention to the cross-town rival.
“Friday games and Saturday games are two different things,” Shephard said. “Different matchups are different things. It’s what you bring each night that really matters. I’m not really worried about comparing ourselves to their matchup versus our matchup.”
After the Ravens’ 31-point win over the Lions on Friday, the Gee-Gees beat them by 23 points on Saturday.
Still, Charles’ desire to get more production out of others besides Warnholtz and Shephard remains. The team struggled with inexperience in the pre-season after key contributors Alain Louis and Lloyd Pandi left the team, and Carleton is still looking to fill that gap.
It didn’t help that Connor Vreeken, another one of Carleton’s key contributors from last year, scored only two points against York, followed by 10 points and eight rebounds against McMaster.
In the final minutes of the York game, the five players who started the game—Warnholtz, Shephard, Vreeken, Wazir Latiff and Reginald Jean Seraphin—were on the bench, chipping in advice for the more inexperienced players on the court. It was an opportunity for newer players to get experience and for Charles to see what worked.
“That’s the job of the guys on the bench and the older guys—to make sure [the younger guys are] doing what they need to be doing,” Warnholtz said. “No matter what year you’re in, there are things that just need to get done on the floor. If it needs a bit of reminding from the bench, even if we’re up 30 or whatever it is, every possession needs to be taken seriously.”
The Ravens will travel next weekend to face the Nipissing Lakers on Nov. 11 and 12. Their next home game is Nov. 25 against the Windsor Lancers.
Feature image by Veronica Carvalho.
