Cole Hobin may have only recorded two points in Carleton’s 99-53 win over the York University Lions Jan. 9 in the Ravens’ Nest, but he still brought the crowd to its feet.
Midway through the third quarter, after a Raven turnover, Hobin put his head down, hustled back and sent the crowd into elation with an outstanding block on Lion guard David Tyndale.
Hobin and Tyndale played against each other when they were younger, so they were certainly aware of one another. And Tyndale had a few words for Hobin after the play.
“He was just joking with me and saying ‘how the hell did you get that?” said Hobin, the third-year guard.
He added: “It was kind of a bad turnover on our part and he just got out and I don’t know, I don’t think I was supposed to be there but it was good to get the guys going and everyone on their feet.”
While most saw the block as a defensive gem, Ravens head coach Dave Smart saw it a little differently.
“It’s all perspective,” Smart said after the game. “The fans see it as a spectacular play and the coaches see it as a defensive mistake that we have to make a great play to make up for. He hustled back, the effort was there, but obviously as a team we didn’t execute to be put in that position.”
The Ravens may not have executed to Smart’s liking on that particular sequence, but they carried out effective plays most of the night.
After a dominating 87-37 victory over the Laurentian University Voyageurs the night before, the Ravens kept the ball rolling against York.
Kevin McCleery led the way offensively with 22 points in only 17 minutes of playing time. After recording 18 points in the first half, McCleery only played four minutes in the second half, as Smart got the bench more involved.
“Some of those guys are on the cusp of starting,” said Smart of Carleton’s bench players.
“We’re trying to play nine or 10 guys. If they play well, we’ll play 10 and if they don’t, we’ll play the eight who are.”
Elliot Thompson also had a big night, chipping in with 17 points and five rebounds.
After outscoring their opponents by a 96-point margin in their first weekend of the new year, the team’s training camp in Florida over the break seems to have had its desired effect.
The team held two-a-day practices in Florida, and Hobin says there was “no rest about it.”
Smart said the training camp helped the team iron out some wrinkles on the defensive side of the ball.
“I think we’re a little more precise defensively than we were in the first semester and that’s always the goal of training camp,” he said. “We’re still sloppy offensively, but the goal of training camp is to get a little better defensively and to improve our toughness and I think we’ve done that.”
Despite Carleton’s 9-1 record, there is still room for improvement and with Smart at the helm, you can bet the team won’t be getting complacent any time soon.
“We’re very vulnerable, we’re very talented, but we’re very vulnerable and our guys know it,” Smart said. “But we’ve still got 10 weeks to get to where we need to be.”
And they’ll continue to work on getting there Jan. 15-16 when they visit the Ryerson University Rams and the University of Toronto Varsity Blues.