Wednesday, 26 January 2011

Carleton 78, Ottawa 65

The Ravens came back to dominate after falling behind by 19 early in the second quarter and won going away before about 7,000 fans at Scotiabank Place (my estimate).  6'6" Tyson Hinz and 6'7" Aaron Chapman keyed an 18-0 Ravens run in a six minute stretch of the second quarter and then 6'5" Cole Hobin, saddled with two early fouls, scored 7 consecutive points and locked down 6'6" Warren Ward as Carleton took control midway through the third.

Ottawa came out on fire as Ward scored the first 7 Gee-Gees points and 10 overall in the first quarter.  More importantly Hobin had two early fouls and had to go to the bench.  Ottawa shot lights out and led 28-9 with about 2 minutes gone in the second before the Ravens went into lock-down mode defensively, guarding the ball, limiting Ottawa to one shot and generally not giving the Gee-Gees any reasonable looks - Ottawa did not score for a 7 minute stretch before 6'6" freshman Gabriel Gonthier-Dubue had a put back late in the first half.  The Gee-Gees had jumped out to their lead with tremendous ball defense and a stellar job cleaning up the defensive glass but became vulnerable to transition scores once their shots stopped dropping.  And when transition wasn't there, things usually flowed through Hinz, who usually delivered in another strong, workmanlike performance.

The teams traded baskets early in the third before Hobin caught fire, getting to the rim, then feeding Hinz underneath, then knocking down a 3 and culminated his game-changing flurry with a steal and finish.  The lead was double digits before the teams started trading baskets through much of the fourth.  Carleton's largest lead was 18.  Ward finished with 22 points, with his final 10 coming after the game was decided.  Hinz had 25 and 10 while Hobin added 14 and Chapman 12 for Carleton.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Carleton obviously started the game very poorly while Ottawa seemed to have all of its shots drop especially from the perimeter.
The Gee Gees played with lots of energy early on while Carleton looked completely out of sync.
When Ottawa's lead got to 28-9 early in the 2nd quarter, it reminded me of that infamous game against York at the Raven's Nest in which the Lions built an incredible 61-22 halftime lead.
Fortunately for the Ravens tonight, the game turned completely around at this point and Carleton outscored Ottawa by a whopping margin of 49-22 over the 2nd and 3rd quarters to turn a huge deficit into a comfortable lead.
Spotting an opponent a 19 point lead is never a good idea and Carleton were lucky they were able to eventually wear the Gee Gees down.
Against one of the teams they might likely face at nationals, like UBC or Sask for example, falling behind to that extent would probably be fatal.