For the University of Victoria Vikes, there are no surprises when facing the Carleton Ravens.
The teams have played each other in a pre-season tournament nearly every year since 2001 and faced off three times in the U Sports men’s basketball national championship. While Carleton’s unflinching dominance over the past 18 seasons may be viewed by some as nothing short of magical, that’s not the case for Victoria.
“Carleton has a recipe for success and they stick to it,” Vikes head coach Craig Beaucamp said. “There’s no smoke and mirrors.”
The teams will play each other again at nationals this year, hosted at the Saville Community Sports Centre in Edmonton, Alta. The quarterfinal matchup on Friday will be a fascinating battle between two juggernauts—the Ravens have been to nationals for 19 consecutive seasons, while the Vikes are making the trip for the first time since 2015.
Beaucamp said the team knows what it needs to do to defeat the perennial champions: Keep the Ravens out of the paint and off the boards.
“Their defensive scheme is gonna be the same, year in and year out,” Beaucamp said. “Offensively, their tactics haven’t changed a lot either over the years … We have a pretty good feel of what we’re up against and what we need to do to be successful.”
Taffe Charles, head coach of the Ravens, said Friday’s game will come down to a difference in style. The Vikes are a big team, with some players listed at six feet seven inches and six feet nine inches tall, while the Ravens roster is shorter.
“The game’s gonna be about that,” Charles said. “Can we take advantage of our speed and our mobility, or are they gonna take advantage of their length?”
Compared to Carleton, which was ranked as the top team in the nation the entire season, the Vikes are underdogs. They started the season outside the top 10 before climbing all the way to third by March 15, powered by 19 consecutive wins to end the season.
That included a 70-64 win over the University of Alberta Golden Bears for the Canada West championship.
Beaucamp doesn’t consider the team underdogs. While the Vikes suffered through injuries at the end of the 2019-20 season, which hampered their postseason run, Beaucamp said they were confident entering this season and are confident now.
This season is the first this century in which Carleton is in the bottom half of the nationals bracket. This comes after the Queen’s Gaels upset Carleton in the Ontario University Athletics (OUA) semifinals and the Ravens were forced to make nationals as a wildcard team for the first time since 2006.
“We were a bit embarrassed … That’s not the way we play,” Charles said. “The overwhelming feeling is just that we didn’t play well because we didn’t have the right mindset to win it.”
Carleton enters the tournament as the number seven seed, while Victoria is the number two seed. Ravens forward Lloyd Pandi, who won U Sports Player of the Year on Thursday, said the matchup will be “a dogfight.”
“We were humbled. We lost our last matchup and we had a bitter taste in our mouth,” Pandi said. “We’re gonna treat ourselves as underdogs and understand there’s a reason why they’re ranked number two and we’re ranked number seven.”
Despite the tough draw for Victoria, Beaucamp said his team would rather play the Ravens early, as Carleton “tends to get stronger” as the tournament goes on.
“Maybe it’s kinda like the 100-metre race, where they don’t tail off as much as maybe some of the others,” Beaucamp said. “It was gonna go through Carleton at one point or another … We’re probably better off playing them the first game than in the third game.”
Featured image by Spencer Colby.
