Badgers flex their muscles
Top NCAA team downs Gee-gees in exhibition match
Hoops aficionados always get out their measuring sticks every time a Canadian team tips off against a team from south of the border in an exhibition match.
How large of a gap is there in the level of play between both sides of the border? What was the point-spread difference in comparing the results of games a Canadian squad has played against an identical U.S. club?
And when archrival Carleton has dusted a foe by 13, and a team believes it’s a contender to challenge the Ravens for the national title, as the Ottawa Gee-Gees do, a team is under even more pressure to provide a stern test. If they don’t compete, the hoops junkies will put away their measuring sticks and conclude they just are not ready for the big time.
Of course, that pressure is only magnified when the opponent is a projected NCAA top-15 team like the Wisconsin Badgers, and probably unfair when the other club is the other-worldly Ravens, winners of nine of the last 11 Canadian Interuniversity Sport titles, including last year’s mind-boggling 50-point win over Lakehead in the final at Canadian Tire Place.
Still, the Gee-Gees were clearly determined to give observers something to talk about, or at a minimum, suffer a so-called “respectable” loss, when they took on the Badgers on Thursday night at Montpetit Hall.
That they did while be- ing outmuscled 101-92 by the Badgers, who shot a breathtaking 15-26 from the arc and outrebounded Ottawa 40-28. A night earlier, the Big Ten Conference representative had been smacked 95-82 by the Ravens as Phillip Scrubb and Tyson Hinz, both past winners of the Mike Moser Trophy as national player of the year, scored 30 and 25 points, respectively.
Wisconsin coach Bo Ryan said his troops were able to get into more of a rhythm having now played a second game using a 24-second shot clock, while forward Ben Dekker began to demonstrate his ability to assert his will. “He’s a player.”
The Gee-Gees exploded to a 9-2 lead on treys by Johnny Berhanemeskel and Vikas Gill, and a driving layup from Mike L’Africain. But the bigger, badder Badgers began effectively utilizing their superior size in the blocks, taking command of the offensive boards as they rallied to a 23-17 lead.
The Gee- Gees perimeter game, though, began exposing Badger indifference to close-outs and L’Africain and Berhanemeskel kept draining jumpers as Ottawa rebuilt a 41-36 lead.
The Badgers bigs, though, went back to work, closing out the half with a 19-3 run, including a pair of treys apiece from 6-11 Frank Kaminsky and 6-8 Duje Dukan.
Although L’Africain and Berhanemeskel continued to keep the Gee-Gees vaguely within reach with a measure of offensive creativity, Ottawa kept missing open layups and losing their defensive assignments in the post, and found themselves trailing by 20 as Dekker began dismantling defenders. The Gee-Gees rallied no closer than six.
Dekker led five Badgers in double figures with 20 points. Ben Brust added 18. L’Africain paced the Gee-Gees with 24 before being forced off the floor with what appeared to be a severe concussion. Berhanemeskel added 23 and Moe Ismail had 14.
Dekker “is a nightmare of matchup. You put a big (man) on him and he blows by. Or he’ll pick and pop and knock down threes. You put a small on him and he’ll post you. And he goes hard to the glass,” said Gee-Gees coach James Derouin. “We had our hands full with him. But I thought we competed better in the second half.
That 19-3 run hurt us when we had some second-year guys on the floor who still need some time.”
The measuring stick games continue Friday and Saturday as the Syracuse Orange, who made the NCAA Final Four last season, swing through the city. The Orange take on Carleton Friday at Canadian Tire Place (7:30 p.m.) and the Gee-Gees Saturday (7 p.m.) at Montpetit Hall.