RSEQ Week #3

Saturday vs. McGill

BU          26      17      19      11   -   73
MU         15      26      20      20   -   81


It was an exciting day on campus. We were inducting former BU basketball stars Trevor Bennett & Cynthia Johnston, along with all time great athletic therapist, Steve King, into the BU-RBC Wall of Distinction. It was great to see so many alumni and friends of Gaiter basketball back to honour these 3 exceptional people. Along with that our women's team broke a multi year RSEQ game losing streak beating a very good McGill team by 22. I am very happy for the coaches & players, they deserved wins earlier in league, but had suffered the same fate as us.

Dave Belanger

Having very similar results as the women's team with some very close losses I was hopeful we would continue to follow the same path as them for at least one more day! McGill had their full complement of players this week and spanked Concordia by 40 on Thursday night. So, we knew this would be a tough game. It looked good early as we started well and played pretty good basketball for the better part of the game. It would have been an entertaining game to watch from the stands and both teams were playing at a  high level.

We managed to hold onto a 2 point half time lead after a shaky 2nd quarter which included missing an open layup at point blank range with 5 seconds to go that McGill rebounded and turned into a running 1 footed take off 3 point hoop from 30 feet out at the buzzer. One play never decides a game, but that was key and one of a handful of possessions that hurt us. Despite that I thought we executed well, played hard and competed every possession.

The game had 14 lead changes and after half time no one really had more than a 4 point lead until the

last 90 seconds of the game. With about 5 minutes to go it looked like McGill had a chance to put us away then, but we put together a couple of defensive stops and scored 5 straight points to take a one point lead. Unfortunately we struggled to score in the final 3 minutes...part of it was McGill's defense and part of it was us just missing good shots.  A couple of empty offensive possessions and a couple of possessions where McGill made big shots decided what was a closely played game. We have talked a lot about the importance of one possession with our guys. It is likely our season is not decided by a game, but by a possession. Top to bottom there is no league as competitive as ours.

So, that leaves us with a league record of 0-4 where we have lost 4 games in the final minutes or seconds. Getting that first victory will do a lot and when that happens we will be difficult to deal with. Dave led us in scoring with 16 points. Jona had 13 points and 5 assists while Nick chipped in 11 points. Abdul had a season high 5 assists.

We do not have a Christmas tournament again this year and will resume league play in January. Until then, I hope everyone has a safe and happy holiday season!
Rod

RSEQ Week #2

Friday @ Laval

BU      17      17       7      23   -   64
UL      20      14      20     20   -   74

Alex Boisse

It is pretty evident looking at the line score where our problem occurred! We were not exactly stellar in the 1st, 2nd or 4th quarters, but we struggled in the 3rd quarter. It seemed terrible when it was happening...and it was! However, it really was a matter of us missing some good shoots. We had good scoring opportunities on about 11 or 12 of our 18 offensive possessions in the 3rd quarter with 3 turnovers and 3 poor shot selections. We missed our last 10 shots of the quarter and at least 8 of them were decent quality looks.

We did manage to mount a comeback with about 7 or 8 minutes to go. We made some of the shots we missed in the previous quarter and narrowed the lead to 5 a few times. As a matter of fact it was a 5 point game with 1:45 left to go. Laval closed out the game well and they deserved the victory. We gave up 30 points off of turnovers and we did not rebound the ball well at all. Those were easily the

Owen Martel

key factors in our loss. Hoping to cut our turnovers down this week and expect to be doing a lot more substituting if we don't!

There is not much to report on with regards to fine individual performances. Dave was solid with 12 points and 8 rebounds. Freshman guard Alex Boisse is continually improving and sophomore forwards Owen Martel & Yassin Naji are coming along nicely.

This Saturday we host McGill to close out the 1st Semester. McGill is ranked #8 in the country and is the team to beat in our league as the defending champs.

The games on Saturday will be played at 2 & 4. It is a special day at BU as former BU star basketball players Cynthia Johnston & Trevor Bennett along with legendary BU Athletic Therapist Steve King all get inducted into the BU Royal Bank Wall of Distinction. There will be a reception following the game in the Sports Centre. There are still a few places left for friends/alumni of BU basketball who are interested in attending. Please contact me if would like to reserve a spot.

I will keep you posted,
Rod

Week #1 RSEQ

Thursday @ Concordia

BU        13      23      22       9   -   67
CU        15      17      25      13  -   70

After the first week of RSEQ play there have been 4 games played and those games have been decided by a total of 9 points. Suffice to say, our league is very tight and every  game is going to be a dogfight.

This game was no different. We did go up by about as much as 9 in the 2nd quarter, but ended up leading by 4 at the half. In the first half we did a good job of not fouling (much easier to do in our league...'they let you play' as they say in the RSEQ) and taking care of the ball.

In the 2nd half we had way too many unforced turnovers. Sometimes your own offense can be your defense's worst enemy and that proved true for us. We defended well enough to keep Concordia in the 50's, but gave up points off turnovers. Despite that, the game was close throughout and we missed two 3 point attempts in the last 20 seconds to tie the game.

Nick played with great energy scoring 16, grabbing 9 rebounds to go along with 4 steals. Abdul had 15 & 8 in a solid return. Jona had 13 points and 3 assists after battling the flu in the days leading up to the game.


Saturday vs. UQAM

BU           16      18      18      20   -   72
UQAM    25      21      14      16   -   76

Defensively we struggled in the first half giving up hoops to the 2 guys we knew who could beat us. That combined with missing some great looks inside put us in a hole. We just did not come to compete in the first half like we had on Thursday night. To our guys credit that changed in the 2nd half and not playing our best basketball we cut UQAM's lead to a more manageable 8 points. By the 5 minute mark of the 4th we were up a point and things were tight from that point on.

With the score tied and about 22 seconds left we missed a wide open corner 3. UQAM rebounded the ball and attacked. We defended the initial shot well, but they picked up a long rebound & scored the putback to go up 2. They defended our next possession and we had to foul which made it a 4 point loss.

Jona led us with 14 points and 7 assists. Nick & Joany had 13 & 12 points respectively.

All in all, disappointing to start league play with 2 losses. On the bright side, we are still missing key players in our line-up and not playing near our potential yet. There is progress in some areas.

This Friday we travel to Laval in our lone game of the week. They have a very talented and athletic team that is capable of beating almost any team in the CIS on a given night. We will have our hands full, but if we come ready to play it should be a very competitive game.

Rod