Sporting Madness

We were pretty pressed for space in this week's Journal , so I had to cut this piece on the men's basketball team's opening weekend games down substantially for the paper. I figured I'd post it here in its entirety for anyone interested in more details on the team and their opening games. For more Gaels' hoops coverage, check out my profile of Mitch Leger in today's paper: I'll have another posts on the team up here shortly. Here's the full story: Basketball opens with a bang By Andrew Bucholtz Sports Editor The men’s basketball team’s started the season with a bang Friday. They earned a 72-67 victory against the Waterloo Warriors, a team that was 6-16 last season but had defeated the Gaels 92-62 in the preseason. Point guard Baris Ondul poured in 19 points against Waterloo and added six assists and three rebounds. Ondul said the team was out for revenge after their ignominious loss to the Warriors in the pre-season. “We were motivated for redemption,...

Breaking down Sunday night's basketball game between the Gaels and the University at Buffalo Bulls (who have a surprisingly close name to that other Buffalo team invading Canada for pre-season games)... The score: 88-61, Buffalo. How I saw it: In person. The Good: Mitch Leger: Leger had his fourth consecutive game with over 20 points, racking up 23 points (on 10 of 15 shooting from the field) and nine rebounds (two offensive) in 28 minutes of action. He scored nine of Queen's first 11 points, but his effectiveness went down after Buffalo started to double-team him. I talked with Buffalo head coach Reggie Witherspoon afterwards, and he said he didn't have much information on individual Queen's players before the match, so they weren't particularly prepared for Leger. Once he started lighting them up, though, Buffalo made the adjustment to a double-team on Leger in the post and challenged the Gaels' other shooters to beat them. Leger was still somewhat effect...

Breaking down tonight's men exhibition basketball match between Queen's and the Anderson University Ravens , a Division I NCAA school from Anderson, Indiana... The score: 91-72, Anderson. How I saw it: In person, at Bartlett Gym on the Queen's campus. The Good: - Mitch Leger: Leger starred for Queen's in their first exhibition match against Northeastern University on Monday night, pouring in 20 points and adding five rebounds in a close 69-59 defeat to a strong Huskies' squad. He delivered an even better performance tonight, notching 28 points (12-19 from the field, four of eight from the line) and ten rebounds (five offensive, five defensive). The 6'7'' Leger looks to be in strong form again this season, and he'll be a key component of this year's Gaels' team. He was named Player of the Game for his efforts. - Rob Shaw: The Gaels' veteran big man was in fine form, grabbing seven rebounds (four on the offensive glass) and notching six...

There's some unusual stuff going on at the University of Ottawa these days, as Ross Prusakowski notes over at blogsketball . According to Prusakowski, Simon Cremer (the sports editor at La Rotonde , the French-language student newspaper over at the University of Ottawa) revealed on the Gee-Gees Hour radio show that Ottawa's Sports Information Coordinator, Dan Carle, apparently let too many details slip for coach David DeAveiro's liking on the injury star point guard Josh Gibson-Bascombe suffered against Toronto . Carle's press release updating Gibson-Bascombe's status contained the following: "The Gee-Gees are without their leading scorer this weekend. Third-year point guard Josh Gibson-Bascombe (Toronto, Social Science) suffered a partial tear of his right MCL knee ligament and sprained ankle following a awkward fall off a rebound attempt with three minutes left in the fourth quarter of last Saturday’s 78-69 home loss to Toronto." According to Cremer, ...

The 8-11 women's team, fresh off an upset of the 13-6 Laurentian Voyageurs, almost made it two in a row against the OUA East-leading York Lions (16-3 heading in to tonight's game), but came up just short, losing 71-66 in overtime. Queen's trailed 29-21 at the half, but outscored York 22-14 in the third and held them even in the fourth to force the extra frame. It really didn't need to go that far, though. With less than a minute to go and the score knotted at 60, Queen's star forward Sarah Barnes hauled down a defensive rebound and started a fast break, but point guard Teddi Firmi missed a tightly contested layup that could have given the Gaels the lead. On the ensuing Lions drive, Queen's forward Anne Murphy fouled York's Emily Van Hoof, who led York with 21points on the night. Van Hoof went to the line, but missed both shots, perhaps thrown off by the noise from the stands. They were the only foul shots she missed all night in a 9-for-11 effort from the li...

The men's basketball team has been getting a fair amount of coverage lately, but they were upstaged by the women tonight. Only three days after their surprising loss to the 2-16 Ottawa Gee-Gees, the women rebounded with a huge 75-69 upset of the 13-5 Laurentian Voyageurs. They held highly-regarded All-Canadian Cassandra Carpenter to just 16 points, and only two in the first half. Nicely enough, this prevented Carpenter from breaking the CIS record for career points against Queen's. She'll almost certainly attain the record tomorrow night against the hapless Royal Military College Paladins (still winless!), but at least it won't have happened against the Gaels. Laurentian came on towards the end when the Gaels got into foul trouble, but Queen's led for most of the game after the first quarter (aided by outscoring the Voyageurs 32-15 in the second frame). By the way, Carpenter didn't really impress me. Sure, she's got a good shot and sees the court well, but s...

The men's basketball team faces a sharp contrast this weekend. Tonight, they play 14-0 Carleton, the consensus No.1 team in the country (according to the CIS poll, cishoops.ca , and the RPI rankings , which agree on very little apart from Carleton). Tomorrow night, they play a polar opposite team in the 0-14 RMC Paladins (as an aside, why does RMC even bother keeping volleyball and basketball teams? They haven't won a game in either gender in either sport this year, so they're worse than the Miami Dolphins, which is pretty sad). Tonight's Carleton game should be quite interesting. As Neate Sager noted on The CIS Blog , Carleton's suffering from a flu bug . That, combined with the possibility that the Ravens might overlook tonight's match in preparation for tomorrow's Capital Hoops Classic against Ottawa before 10,000 fans at Scotiabank Place, should at least give the Gaels a slim chance to my way of thinking. Unfortunately, head coach Rob Smart doesn't...