RSEQ Week #8

Friday vs. #5 McGill 

BU     20    26    22    18   -   86
MU    20    20    19    22   -   81

McGill is easily the team to beat in our conference. Aside from Carleton, they as good or better than any team we have played this year...and we have played 4 of the top 6 teams in the country so far. So, getting a win on Friday was not necessarily expected, but playing well was. We have had not had a bad practice since we returned after Christmas and I feel we have been making very good progress each week since then despite having at least 1 key player missing from our rotation every game.

Yassin Naji...game clinching 3 pt shot

In this game we led for at least 39 minutes. McGill led by 1 point twice for 1 possession each time I believe. We played with energy and poise most of the time, but we really competed on the glass. We did out rebound McGill 53-30 and held them to 41% shooting from the floor...although they did miss some open looks from the 3 point line at times. We led by as many as 11 at points in the game and if not for 25 turnovers we would have probably been able to put the game away earlier on this night. McGill's full court pressure is very good, but we did not turn the ball over there. Just some mistakes that were careless at times.  We have improved defensively, but still putting some things together offensively and figuring out how to play more efficiently together on that end.

McGill took 1 of their brief 1 point leads halfway through the 4th Q, but we responded on the next possession and held the lead for the remainder of the game. Our guys played poised and played well down the stretch.

Abdul had an excellent all around game with 24 points, 12 rebounds & 5 assists.  Joany was solid at both ends of the floor with 16 points & 5 rebounds. Nervens chipped in 12 points and 6 assists. Yassin had a big 3 point shot to seal the game in the last 2 minutes as part of his 11 points. Dave struggled to score, but had 12 rebounds & 6 assists. Big Jonah added 9 points off the bench. In the last 3 games Jonah is 10-11 from the floor including a 3 point shot in this game.


Saturday @ #5 McGill

BU     16    18    15     8   -   57
MU    27    23    32    26  -   108

This was just one of those games. A combination of McGill doing what they do well, being very motivated and us just not having it. We were physically a bit beat up going into Friday (we had 8 guys at practice Monday to Wednesday last week) and were in worse shape Saturday.  We knew what was coming, but we just had no juice.

We hung around a bit early, but McGill was tough and we just were not doing things to help our own cause. About 3 minutes into the 2nd half when Dave went down with an ankle injury we were pretty much into practice mode. Forget the score, spread out the minutes and see what we can learn the rest of the game. We did not head into the game with this mindset, but that is the way it played out.

Abdul had 17 points to lead us in scoring. Freshman Jordan Thornhill had a career high 11 and freshman PG Nervens had 10 rebounds.

This is our bye week and it could not come at a better time. We have some minor aches & pains we have to take care along with a couple of other injuries. With any luck we will have the core of our playing rotation available a week from Thursday at UQAM.

I will keep you posted.
Rod