Rams, Dinos put similar styles on the line in semifinal tilt
The mirror doesn’t lie and when the Calgary Dinos and Ryerson Rams each stare into its depths, the two schools set to meet Saturday in the CIS Final 8’s Final Four semifinals see each other in so many ways.
“Exactly the same team,” said Calgary’s first-team all-Canadian guard Thomas Cooper when asked about Saturday’s clash between the respective champs of the Canada West and the OUA. “It will be fun. An up-and-down game. Both teams are fast. But they are No. 1 for a reason.”
Added Ryerson head coach Patrick Tatham: “Some say that it will be the first to 100 (points) that wins, but the team that can hold the other to 70 or 80 will win the game. If you look at numbers, we average the same amount from three (point-range) and we have the same amount of possession per game.
“They’ve got some dynamic guards and so do we.”
Which is to say that if both teams stick with what has brought them to the dance — tempo-pushing play with a ton of penetration-and-kick — the most entertaining game of what has thus far been a highly competitive tournament is likely to unfold when the two teams takes to the floor.
The No. 4-seeded Dinos found a way to wade through the physical mud of No. 5 McGill’s expertly executed slowdown style, hitting 10 straight free throws to close out a 72-69 win over the Redmen in Thursday’s quarter-final round.
Cooper, whose two free throw makes with 9.8 seconds remaining sealed the victory, finished with a game-high 21 points.
The No. 1 Rams, who trailed by as many as 15 points in the first half of their quarter-final clash with host and No. 8 seed UBC, continued to show a remarkable unflappability, rallying to tie the score with 25.3 seconds remaining on a trey by John-Victor Mukama, then winning 109-101 in overtime.
Both teams have shown championship poise en route to their conference titles, but Ryerson’s habit of coming back from double-digit deficits against top-ranked foes is impossible to ignore, its win over the Thunderbirds coming on the heels of a 13-point rally in the OUA championship final against the Carleton Ravens.
“It’s so stress-free,” Adika PeterMcNeilly said of his team’s offensive system. “You don’t have to think about too many plays. You just go out and play. It’s all instinct. We got a good (win) yesterday. We needed something like that with the crowd against us.”
But what do teams with such stylistic similarities do when they face each other?
“We’re definitely going to mix it up,” said Tatham. “We’re going to throw a couple of wrenches at them and they’re going to do the same to us. The difference is that our team has a little bit more experience in that we were also at nationals last year and we have the luxury of playing Ottawa, Carleton and Brock on a regular basis.”
Yet it won’t mean anything if the Rams can’t stop Cooper, as dynamic a force as there is here at the Final 8.
Ask Calgary head coach Dan Vanhooren about where the Chattanooga (Tenn.) Choo-Choo ranks among all-time Dinos greats and he doesn’t hesitate.
“He is definitely one of the top guys I have coached in my 16 years here,” Vanhooren said, “and we’ve had some good ones.”
Five-time defending champion Carleton faces the Dalhousie Tigers in Saturday’s first semifinal.