Yasiin Joseph stumbled, turned his head and made a decision. He jumped, pivoting in the air towards centre court, and shot. As he steadied himself from his backwards momentum, the ball bounced off the glass and into the hoop.
The Carleton Ravens were on the board.
The explosive three-pointer was just a preview of Joseph’s clinical night. He scored 34 points—including nine three-pointers—on the way to a nail-biting 88-82 win over the Ryerson University Rams on Jan. 25 night. Combined with an 87-64 win on Jan. 24 against the University of Toronto Varsity Blues, the Ravens have now won 17 consecutive games to start this season.
While Carleton’s scoring snowballed in the second half and made it look like their trademark late surge, the Rams rewrote the script in the fourth quarter. Coming back from a 10-point deficit, Ryerson’s Tevaun Kokko made it a two-point game with just 37 seconds left on the clock, taking advantage of a worn down Carleton team.
Ultimately, five missed free throws in the final three minutes ruined the Rams’ chances of upsetting the undefeated Ravens.
As electric as the last few minutes were, Carleton’s exhaustion showed. There were sloppy plays, and shots made earlier in the game that missed in the third and fourth quarter. At one point, Carleton was up by 15 points, but couldn’t put the Rams away. The final scoring differential of six points is the second-smallest this season for the Ravens.
“It’s one of those games that, yeah, I’m obviously happy with the results, but I think that we’ve got some work to do,” said head coach Taffe Charles. “It’s tough to win.”
Charles credits Alain Louis, the third-year guard, for spreading the ball around and setting up his teammates for shots. Lloyd Pandi, the rookie sensation, scored 24 points for the Ravens. Combined, Pandi and Joseph scored 58 points.
“Normally, we like to spread [the scoring] around,” said Charles. “I feel like some people got a little tight tonight and wanted to find Yasiin versus maybe taking shots on their own.”
The night earlier, Joseph scored 27 points against Toronto, again leading the team. He is also first in three pointer percentage in the Ontario University Athletics East Division.
While the Rams had won six in a row and eight of their last 10 before facing the Ravens, the Varsity Blues had lost five consecutive games before going up against Carleton.
At the end of the first quarter, the Varsity Blues led 20-13, a hole the Ravens quickly clawed themselves out of. In the second quarter, Carleton outscored Toronto 18 to eight, but the game remained close until halfway through the third quarter, when Carleton finally began to pull away with a 10-point run.
“Sometimes, we make winning look very easy, and the reality is, winning is not that easy,” said Charles.
But it was Saturday night’s game against Ryerson that truly tested the Ravens’ mentality and grit through to the final minutes. Carleton succeeded this time around, as they have before.
“We kinda are [taking winning for granted],” said Charles. “We’re trying to not have to lose a game to learn that we’re not as good as we think we are sometimes.”
As the season reaches its final games, the Ravens will stay on the road and head to Western University on Jan. 31 for an 8 p.m. game, followed by an 8 p.m. game against the University of Windsor on Feb. 1.
Feature image from file.
