Saskatchewan wins 1st men's basketball title
In a season of firsts for the Saskatchewan Huskies, the biggest one came Sunday.
The Huskies beat the UBC Thunderbirds 91-81 to claim their first Canadian university basketball title.
A week after winning their first Canada West crown, the fifth-ranked Huskies defeated the fourth-ranked Windsor Lancers on Friday before disposing of the top-ranked Carleton Ravens on Saturday. Saskatchewan finished the season on a 13-game winning streak and won 17 of their last 18 games dating back to early January.
"This is the pinnacle of my coaching career and one of the pinnacles in these guys' lives," said Huskies coach Greg Jockims. "Obviously we are very excited. There's so much work that goes into this and there's also a little bit of luck too.
"Since Christmas we're playing as well as anybody in the country and we hit this tournament in stride. We had a close three games and we made plays in the fourth quarter and won it."
It was the Huskies' first appearance in the championship game and they came out firing.
Showron Glover led all players with 28 points for the Huskies and was a solid 10-for-12 from the free-throw line. As a team the Huskies scored 21 of their points from the line and connected on 10 three-point attempts.
Gottselig named MVP
Huskies fifth-year forward Troy Gottselig had 22 points in the final and was named the tournament's most valuable player.
"To be honest, at the start of the season I didn't believe that we could do it," Gottselig said. "Two years ago we had a great team and we thought we were going then, but we just didn't have the team that we have now.
"We've got guys that can put the ball in the hoop and it comes down to who's a team, who comes together and who's got the best chemistry coming down the stretch. We believed."
Kamar Burke and CIS player of the year Josh Whyte led the Thunderbirds with 16 points each.
"They were hitting open threes all game and that was killing us. We knew they could put up the threes in transition, but we didn't do anything to change," said Burke.
The Thunderbirds lost in the final for the second straight year after falling 87-77 to the Ravens in the title game last year.
UBC trailed 45-31 at the half and went into the fourth down by 10. Both teams put up 24 points in a furious final quarter.
In the consolation final, the Cape Breton Capers got four three-point field goals and 16 points overall from James Dorsy in a 95-92 overtime win over Windsor.
The Lancers got 24 points from Andre Smyth and 22 from Isaac Kuon, but couldn't use the momentum of a nine-point comeback in the fourth quarter to propel them in overtime.
The teams were tied 75-75 after regulation.