Western thumps Ottawa in university hoops playoffs
The University of Western Ontario Mustangs took a single-point lead at the end of the first quarter and turned it into a 13-point lead at the half as they defeated the University of Ottawa Gee-Gees 75-48 in the Canadian university men's basketball championships quarter-final Friday in the country's capital.
Western now advances to the semifinals against top seed Carleton (Saturday, 8 p.m. ET) after the Ravens beat No. 8 St. Francis Xavier 94-57.
Earlier in the day, second seed Calgary defeated seventh seed Concordia 76-67, while UBC defeated sixth seed Dalhousie 78-54. Calgary will now meet UBC in the first semifinal, on Saturday at 6 p.m. ET.
The Gee-Gees had chances, but only shot 23.3 per cent from the floor in the first half. The Mustangs hit 40.6 per cent of their shots.
Ottawa got into foul trouble early in the game, but it wasn't an issue, according to head coach David DeAveiro.
"It didn't matter tonight," said DeAveiro. "They were just better than us in all aspects of the game.
"We just picked the worst night to have our worst game. Again, a lot of that goes to what they did defensively. They found the mismatches, they exploited the mismatches and they were just better than us in every aspect of the game."
Western head coach Bradley Campbell didn't think his team played as well as they could have early, giving up 10 offensive rebounds in the first half but adjusting as the game progressed.
"We talked about it at half. We talked about a few strategies to make sure we do that and we came up big and we controlled the glass," said Bradley.
In the second half, the Gee-Gees pressed but still only shot 27.1 per cent, while Western, led by forward Brad Smith, continued to rebound with authority, scooping up almost every loose ball.
Following the game, Smith from Western and centre Dax Dessureault from Ottawa were selected as MVPs of their respective teams.
Carlton dominates St. Francis Xavier
In the late quarter-final, Carlton controlled the game from start to finish, shooting 58.2 per cent and out-rebounding the X-Men 38-18.
Any hopes of a miraculous St. FX comeback vanished early in the third quarter when third-year Ravens guard Mike Kenny and fifth-year guard Stuart Turnbull hit back-to-back three-point shots on Carleton's first two possessions of the second half.
Turnbull, the Ontario University Athletics East MVP this season, was 9-of-11 from the floor, including 4-of-5 from beyond the arc.
Six-foot-eight Ravens forward Kevin McCleery added 14 points, while second-team all-Canadian forward Aaron Doornekamp and CIS defensive player of the year Robert Saunders had 13 and 10, respectively.
Doornekamp, last year's CIS MVP, added eight rebounds and five assists and was 6-of-6 from the floor to earn player-of-the-game honours for the winners.