The UNBC Timberwolves men’s basketball season ended Saturday afternoon in Edmonton with an 80-41 loss to the Alberta Golden Bears.
The Bears swept the playoff series 2-0 to advance to the semifinals. That’s how it will go down in U Sports Canada West conference history.
But what the T-wolves will remember most about their 39-point loss Saturday to the defending Canada West champs are the little victories they scored in the first half, before the game got out of hand.
Taking on the top-ranked defence in the conference, the T-wolves turned the tables after a 98-64 loss to Alberta on Friday. In Game 2 they held the Bears to 18 points in the first 13 minutes and had the No. 3 team in the country trailing by three points.
James Agyeman’s hustle got him moving with the ball and from the below the key he threaded a long pass out to Tyrell Laing, who nailed the three for a 21-20 lead, and for the first time in the two-game series UNBC was ahead. The T-wolves kept pressing with speed on defence and forced Alberta to run out the shot clock and Jovan Leamy increased the UNBC lead to three.
That’s when the wheels on the T-wolves’ wagon began to fall off.
Brody Clarke hit a baseline jumper and Mamadou Gueye, with only two seconds on the shot clock, found the net from three-point range to restore the Alberta lead with 4:11 left in the first half. UNBC’s shooting went cold and they trailed by nine, 37-28, heading into the intermission.
“We came out to play and despite the (final) score being almost the same as the first game we feel a lot better about this game,” said UNBC forward Daniel Stark.
“We had a hard time getting buckets but defensively we were playing for most of that game playoff-level basketball and we’re finishing our season holding on to that.”
Stark said the go-ahead shot from second-year guard Laing in the second quarter provided a huge lift, sparking hopes the T-wolves might be on their way to a huge upset to extend the series to a third game, but they could not sustain it.
“That’s exactly what you hope for when you’re playing a team like this, you hope you can stay in the game and put a little pressure on them and make them take us seriously,” said the 26-year-old Stark. “It’s easy for these top teams to kind of feel they can roll through some of these rounds of playoffs but we wanted to make them feel they had to play their best basketball and we feel like we did that.”
The Golden Bears attack was relentless and they poured it on in the second half, outscoring UNBC 25-5 in the third quarter for a 59-30 lead.
That gave the Bears a chance to go to their bench in the fourth quarter and Sam Newman responded by hitting three of four of his three-pointers in the final 10 minutes on the way to an 11-point game. Alberta put up 49 points in the second half and like they’ve done so often to their opponents this season threw a blanket over the T-wolves, holding them to 16 points in the final two quarters.
It seemed the T-wolves couldn’t buy a bucket in the second half. They ended the game shooting 16-for-57 from the field (28 per cent) and went 5-for-24 (20.8 per cent) with their threes. Alberta hit 29-of-69 of their field goals (42 per cent) and 7-of-24 (29.2 per cent) of their three attempts. As in Game 1, the Bears rarely missed from the foul line, hitting 15-of-17, while UNBC was 4-for-7.
“I thought defensively the guys made the adjustments we asked them to make and they did a pretty good job overall – obviously it got away from us late and we were deep into our bench but for two quarters we really defended,” said T-wolves head coach Todd Jordan. “They’re a very tough defensive team and when we did get open looks we didn’t make them. It was just not a good shooting night and against a team of that level, if you’re not able to score, you’re not going to win any playoff games if you only score 40 points. Their defence had a lot to do with that, they were on you with their depth and that factors into it too.”
The six-foot-eight Clarke was a monster underneath, drawing in five offensive rebounds and three defensive boards while collecting a game-high 21 points, eight of which came in the first quarter. Gueye was also a handful to try to stop – he picked up 18 points and eight rebounds – while Geoff Pippus was good for 10 points and eight rebounds.
Two of the T-wolves’ top scorers got into foul trouble early. Vova Pluzhnikov was held to just six points (he went 1-for-5 with his three attempts) and Leamy had just four points on the board before he fouled out early in the fourth quarter.
“JV (Leamy) couldn’t get a rhythm going, he’s a big threat for us and that hurts us when we can’t have him on the floor for long stretches of the game,” said Jordan.
Marcus MacKay, in the last game of his five-year career, was the only T-wolf to reach double figures. MacKay, a top-15 career three-point shooter, had 10 points, shooting 4-for-14 with his field goals and 2-for-7 from three-point range.
“Marcus struggled to make shots down the stretch and that’s the game when you’re a shooter like he is,” said Jordan. “He’s had a great career and we’re real proud of him, he’s been one of the harder workers in the program and I’m glad we were able to get him into the playoffs and get a playoff win.”
After finished 10th in the conference with a 10-10 record, the T-wolves beat the Winnipeg Wesmen 71-68 last week, their first playoff win in six seasons as part of Canada West, to advance to the quarterfinal round.
The Golden Bears, now 21-1 for the season, will host the Lethbridge Pronghorns next weekend in a best-of-three semifinal series.
On the bright side, the T-wolves lose just two players – Stark and MacKay – to graduation. Next year’s edition will be able to draw on their three games of playoff experience in 2018 and be better for it.
“There’s lessons to be learned for this weekend that are going to be important in our growth moving forward and hopefully we can take those lessons and turn it into an even better season next year,” said Jordan.
“For any of our retuning guys, particularly our younger guys, there’s no replacement for the experience of being in those moments and hopefully in another playoff series down the road that experience will benefit them.”
