Jack Donahue Tourney Results

Jack Donahue Tournament @ U of Ottawa

Friday @ Ottawa

BU        10       8      23      15    -    56

UO        27      14    24      24    -    89

This was a tough one from the start. We lost Abdul for the weekend a couple of minutes into the game with a sprained ankle. That did not help, but it was not going to make a difference in this game.   Ottawa is an experienced and well coached team that played well all weekend. We did a poor job of defending dribble penetration which gave a very good shooting team way too many open looks from the 3 point line. That is something we are working to get better at.

Freshman Guard - Joany Thadal Castor

Not a lot of positives in this game to report on. Freshman Joany Thadal Castor led us with 11 points and he played very well all weekend. Joany would be referred to as a ‘3 and D’ kind of player...(I will give you the credit on that one Bones!!)  A good 3 point shooter who is also a defensive specialist. He did a nice job on both of those aspects of the game this weekend. Jona added 10 points as our only other double digit scorer.

Saturday vs. Waterloo - Overtime

BU          26      15      24      14      13   -   92

UW         10      25      23      21      17   -   96

After getting kicked the night before our guys came out very focused and did a great job of following the game plan in the first quarter and early in the 2^nd quarter. We played well enough to build a 20 point lead before we stopped doing the things that got us the lead. Waterloo to their credit hung tough and did a good job of being opportunistic throughout the game.

The story of the game was at the foul line where Waterloo shot 43 free throws to our 24. I may not have agreed with some of the officiating, but we were simply undisciplined with some of our fouls and did not adjust to how the game was being officiated. If we had looked after that we don’t go to overtime and we do not lose this game.

Freshman Point Guard - Alex Boisse

Late in regulation Waterloo took a 1 point lead with 3.6 seconds to go. Out of the timeout our guys executed well and found Jona who drew a 2 shot foul with 1.5 seconds left to go. So, Jona was heading to the line with a chance to win the game and there is no one I would rather have at the line other than him. Unfortunately, he missed the first, but made the 2^nd to send it to overtime.

In the later part of the game we lost Joany & Nick as they both fouled out. Without them we just did not have enough to hold off Waterloo in overtime as we suffered another close loss. Dave & Jona had 24 & 23 points respectively while Joany added another 14. Owen had 10 points & 6 rebounds in the losing cause.

Sunday vs. Toronto

BU               14      23      22      19   -   78

UofT            15      15      33      13   -   76

I thought we expended a lot of energy in the overtime game the day before and a couple of the guys playing were a little more nicked up. A Noon time start made it a short turnaround between games and with a thin line-up my main concern was to get out of the weekend with no more injuries as league play is fast approaching.

To our guy’s credit, they did not enter the game with any excuses in hand. After a slow start offensively we started to find our flow and built a 7 point half time lead. The 3^rd quarter was a combination of us turning the ball over and Toronto making some adjustments at half time that helped them put 33 points up in just 10 minutes.

2nd Year Forward - Nick Harvey

Throughout the 4^th quarter it was close, but they had built up a 5 point lead with about a minute to go. Freshman point guard Alex Boisse, who was a spark in the 2^nd half,  found his fellow Freshman Joany in the corner for his 5^th 3 point hoop of the game to cut the lead to 2. We managed to hold defensively and got the ball back with 24 seconds left. We did get a decent look initially to tie, but missed. Fortunately Nick grabbed his 18^th rebound of the game and kicked out the offensive rebound to Jona who knocked down the winning shot with 8 seconds to go. Great to get the win, but very happy to see Jona cash in on an opportunity to redeem himself in a late game situation after missing a chance to ice the game the day before. Toronto had one last shot and Nick rebounded the miss to finish the game with his 19^th rebound.

Dave led us in scoring with 20 points while grabbing 8 rebounds. Jona had 18 points and 5 assists. Nick added 17 points and an impressive 19 rebounds. When he is locked in he is very difficult to contain on the glass. He has a great combination of speed, quickness & strength for a kid who is 6’6 and 230 pounds! Joany completed his best weekend as a Gaiter with 15 points and some excellent defense.

Thanks to the BU alumni who came out to support us. It was nice to see Tommy Van Alstine, Grafton Timothy, Jeremy Leonard-Smith, Tim Hunter and Blair Shier out at the games. A special thank you again to Blair who provided the pics in this post along with more that will follow throughout the year. Blair finds the time each year to get to one of pre-season tournaments where he treats our guys to a meal and takes literally hundreds of game action shots of our team. So very much appreciated! Especially since we are not often in BC where he resides. 

That completes our CIS non-conference/exhibition play for the year. We finish that portion with a record of 3-5 vs. CIS opponents. Easily a couple of bounces and calls away from being 5-3 or better, but we are not the only team who could be saying that!

This week we head to the US to face a perennial championship level NCAA D2 team in Southern New Hampshire U at 6 pm on Friday. On the way back home through Vermont on Saturday we catch Lyndon State at 4 pm. SNHU should be on par with the likes of Ottawa and we will definitely have our hands full. I do not know too much about Lyndon, but both games will help us prepare for RSEQ play which opens the following week.

I will keep you posted,

Rod