Mcmillan, SMU bring home banner
Energetic fourth quarter lead Huskies to second straight title
Alaina Mcmillan wanted to take it all in.
Entering what could’ve been the final quarter of her Atlantic university women’s basketball career, the Saint Mary’s Huskies star guard stood at Scotiabank Centre centre court, waving her arms as the loudspeakers played a remix of Take Me Home, Country Roads. It was an attempt to rouse the crowd attending the AUS Final 6 championship, but it also seemed to energize her teammates.
Trailing the No. 2 UNB Reds 45-41 heading into the final 10 minutes, the topranked and defending champion Huskies knuckled down defensively in the fourth, limiting the Reds to just four points in the quarter en route to a 64-49 victory and a second straight conference banner.
“I was just trying to enjoy my last time on this court,” said Mcmillan, the diminutive fifth-year guard who was named tournament MVP.
“The whole game I was looking at the stands and was trying to take in the whole moment. It goes by so fast.
“I know that I’m going to look back and cherish that moment. I just wanted to have a connection with the fans. They give us energy, we give them energy. It’s kind of a give and take.”
Feeding off the fans’ energy, the Huskies limited the Reds to just one-of-13 shooting from the floor and forced them to take three shot-clock violations in the quarter.
While Mcmillan stepped up offensively in the clutch, scoring six points (15 in the second half) and dishing out four assists in the fourth, she contributed at the other end of the court with three key shot blocks. SMU had 11 blocks in the game.
“One thing we’ve been capitalizing on all year is really focusing on defence,” said Mcmillan, who finished with a game-high 22 points and added six assists, three rebounds and two steals to go with her three blocks in the fourth.
“Scott (SMU head coach
“I played for each one of my teammates and I made sure they weren’t leaving with a loss too.” Alaina Mcmillan
Scott Munro) and all our coaches tell us that defence wins basketball games and I think in that fourth quarter we really highlighted that. We knew UNB is a good team, it was just a matter of making sure their shots were hard and they didn’t get good opportunities. We did that in the fourth and it worked out in the end.”
Clara Gascoigne, the twotime AUS defensive player of the year, added 10 points, five boards, three steals and two blocks for the Huskies while Aki Kobayashi had 10 points off the SMU bench.
Conference MVP Jayda Veinot paced the Reds with 18 points but was held to 6-for-20 from the field.
Neither team was on the mark through the first three quarters. SMU was 15-for-53 in shot attempts and UNB, while slightly better with a 34 per cent field goal efficiency, was 0-for-11 in three-point attempts. The Reds were 0-for-15 from beyond the arc in the game.
This wasn’t how Mcmillan envisioned her university career would conclude.
“I can only speak for myself but I wasn’t leaving my AUS career with a loss,” she said. “I took that personally and I played for each one of my teammates and I made sure they weren’t leaving with a loss too. I’m sure every other girl did the exact same thing. That was a determining factor. We all just locked in and we did our role in the fourth.”
Before the quarter, little was said in the Huskies’ huddle, according to Mcmillan.
“Scott is one of those men of minimal words,” Mcmillan said.
“Same with our coaches. He has such confidence in us as players which instills confidence in ourselves and we bring that out of each other. It was just play defence, get stops and have confidence with our offence. Everything else was really in our hands that fourth quarter.”
The Huskies become the conference’s first back-toback women’s champion since Acadia turned the trick in 2018 and ’19. They advance to the U Sports Final 8 national championship, March 7-10 at the University of Alberta in Edmonton.
“We’ve had the same group of girls for a long time and it just feels really nice to win it with your best friends,” Mcmillan said.
“We’ve done it two times and it will be a memory I’ll have with me for the rest of my life.”
Note: Mcmillan and teammate Marlo Steenbakkers were named to the tournament all-star team along with Veinot, UNB'S Katie Butts and Alana Short of Memorial.