Thunderbirds advance to CIS final
Paced by a 16-point performance from Josh Whyte, the UBC Thunderbirds defeated the University of Calgary Dinos 77-63 Saturday afternoon in the first of two semifinals at the Canadian Interuniversity Sports men's basketball championship at Scotiabank Place in Ottawa.
The third-seeded Thunderbirds will now await the winner of the other semifinal between the No. 1 ranked Carleton Ravens and the No. 5 University of Saskatchewan Huskies. The CIS championship game is Sunday at 6:30 ET.
Trailing for most of the opening 12 minutes, the Thunderbirds took control of the game in the second quarter and led 34-28 at the half.
Alex Murphy hit a three-pointer at the buzzer to send the Thunderbirds into the break on a high note. He also led all shooters in the first half with nine points.
"Both teams got into foul trouble in the first half," UBC coach Kevin Hanson said.
"They're big three of [Ross] Bekkering, [Robbie] Sihota and [Tyler] Fidler are a pretty impressive three. Their physical size, their length and their height really play a factor, but that run we had in the second quarter, especially with the lineup they had in there, was certainly needed."
The teams were even through the third quarter collecting a dozen points each, but the fourth quarter opened with authority for the Dinos as Bekkering slammed down two in an attempt to get his team going for a final push.
That would be as close as the seventh-ranked Dinos would get, however, as their improbable run, which included a quarter-final win over the second-ranked Cape Breton Capers Friday, came to an end.
"We were very familiar with this team and we felt very prepared and I thought we were in a really good state of mind coming into this game," Bekkering said.
"It's such a tough loss but they played so well. Coming into this tournament we ignored the seeding criteria and we felt we deserved to be here and that were right in the running to win it all. Anything less than winning the tournament is definitely a huge disappointment."
The Thunderbirds took control of the game right after as Kamar Burke responded to the Bekkering slam with a big dunk of his own, scoring 19 of the next 22 points for a 65-45 lead with less than five minutes to play.
Kamar and Murphy both finished with 14 points for the Thunderbirds, while the Dinos were led in offence by Jarred Jackson-Ogungbemi and his 16 points and five rebounds.