Ontario’s top player a Gee-Gee
‘It’s truly a blessing,’ shooting guard says of the OUA basketball accolade
Johnny Berhanemeskel has become the first University of Ottawa Gee-Gee to be named Ontario University Athletics men’s basketball player in five years.
“It’s truly a blessing,” he said Thursday after practice. “But it’s not what we are aiming for this year. I’d trade all this stuff for a championship any day,” the fifthyear shooting guard said on the eve of this weekend’s OUA Final Four tournament at Montpetit Hall. “You don’t really get this type of recognition unless your team is really good.”
The Gee-Gees were good enough this year to reach top spot in the national rankings for the first time and good enough to first in the OUA North Division standings with an 18-1 record. That and a convincing 116-71 victory against the Laurentian Voyageurs last Saturday has earned them the right to host the Final Four on home court.
“It has truly been an unbelievable ride,” said Berhanemeskel, who led the conference in scoring with an average of 23.2 points per game and became the third OUA player to reach 2,000 career regular-season points.
“Some of the stuff that we have had planned like hosting Final Four and making sure we took care of business in our regular season, we were able to do that.
“We are just trying to stick with our agenda.
“In playing for each other, you get more out of yourself, and you don’t want to let people down. You don’t want to let team and your family down.”
Berhanemeskel is the first athlete to be named OUA basketball player of the year since the conference ended its practice of honouring one player each from the East and West Divisions. The league reconfigured into four divisions before the start of this season.
Eight of the previous nine winners of OUA East player of the year honours had been Carleton Ravens, the exception being Ottawa’s Josh Gibson-Bascombe in 2010.
The Gee-Gees’ James Derouin was named OUA coach of the year for the first time on Thursday.
Carleton’s Thomas Scrubb was named defensive player of the year, adding a third such honour to those he received for the OUA East in the past two years. The fifth-year forward from Richmond, B.C., averaged 7.6 rebounds, 0.7 steals, 0.4 blocks and a team-leading 17.2 points per game on offence as the Ravens went 17-2.
The Gee-Gees will face the Windsor Lancers in the first Final Four semifinal Friday at 6 p.m. The Ravens will take on the Rams in the second semifinal at 8.
The winners of those games will receive the two OUA berths in the CIS championship next week at Toronto. Because Ryerson is host of that tournament, a Rams victory against the Ravens would transfer the “host” spot to the winner of the OUA bronze-medal game on Saturday.
The conference final is also Saturday night.
As of late Thursday afternoon, about 160 tickets remained available for the Friday contests, and there were fewer than 100 left for Saturday night.