The Carleton Ravens survived an early first-quarter scare before breezing past the University of Toronto Varsity Blues 83-43 on Feb. 9.
Coming off a grinding win against the Ryerson University Rams Feb. 8, head coach Dave Smart was less than impressed with his team’s performance.
“It’s just a preparation thing,” he said. “It’s only 24 hours, they’re not 45 years old.”
In a ceremony before the game, Smart gave a speech commending the graduating Ravens Dan Penner and Kyle Smendziuk.
Cracking jokes and talking about both players battling through injuries, Smart said it was easier to replace their talent than their toughness.
He admitted that if the players had wanted to, they would’ve been key players on other teams.
“They’ve both sacrificed because they would have had bigger roles at other places,” Smart said after the game.
In the opening quarter, the Varsity Blues had a surprising 12-5 lead early on to knock the wind out of the number one ranked Ravens.
The Blues occupied the bottom of the standings, with only two wins in 15 games, conceding 1,435 points over the course of the season.
Ravens coaching staff and players have talked over the past weeks about the need to tighten up their defence heading into the playoffs.
“They played hard, they got after it and they competed,” Smart said. “They did a lot of things to take us out of what we wanted to do and we didn’t do enough to make it tough on them in the first half.”
Alex Hill, the Blues’ leading scorer, dominated in the paint, finding it no problem to get to the hoop.
Combining with Arun Kumar, ranked seventh in the Ontario University Athletics (OUA) in scoring, they terrorized the Ravens’ perimeter defence.
But, after a quick time-out call from Smart, the Ravens emerged refocused and re-energized.
Carleton went on a 25-6 scoring streak, taking a 41-27 lead at halftime.
Thomas Scrubb, who scored eight points, went coast-to-coast not once, but twice, finishing the second attempt with a dunk to bring the capacity crowd to its feet.
The crowd were not the only ones reeling from the dunk, as U of T struggled to generate any offence from the start of the second half.
Devin Johnson tried to ignite the Blues offence with back-to-back shots from outside the arc, but with Hill struggling to replicate his first half form, it was always going to be an uphill battle to knock the Ravens off their perch.
With a final regular season match-up against the University of Ottawa Gee-Gees on Feb. 16, and playoffs just around the corner, Smart wants to see an improvement from his team.
“We’re a very poor defensive team,” he said. “We just have to do some better things on that end and if we do those things we have a chance, but if we don’t then we’re going to have a hard time when all is said and done.”
