Ravens eye U Sports double-double
NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIPS: Carleton women determined to justify top seed, while men aim for another title
OTTAWA — When Rodney Dangerfield joked about no respect, people laughed.
It hasn’t been so funny for the Carleton Ravens women’s basketball team, which for much of this season — despite 21 straight wins — has been pushed aside, left out of the “who’s best” conversation.
Maybe that hasn’t been such a bad thing for the Ravens and coach Taffe Charles, who lived through the no respect thing previously as a standout Ravens men’s player from 199095. Said Charles, who later won five national championships as a Carleton men’s assistant coach before joining the women’s program 10 years ago: “When I was with the men’s program, we were an afterthought. Everybody was, ‘Who’s Carleton? They aren’t very good.’ Now it’s gone totally in the other direction, which is a testament to what they’ve been able to do. With the women’s team, we’ve taken a back seat; even when we did well, people were talking about all these other teams. We thought maybe we weren’t getting the recognition we deserved. What we tell the players is, ‘If you want recognition, you have to go earn it, do something special.’
“We’ve been playing with a chip on our shoulder all year long. We’ve played pretty much every team in this (national championship) tournament and we’ve done well. We beat Laval, which was ranked No. 1. We beat McMaster, which was ranked No. 1. We played Regina at their place, we beat Queen’s three times, we beat McGill. What we have to understand now is each game is independent.”
And that’s the idea beginning Thursday when, on the biggest stage at the U Sports women’s basketball nationals in Victoria, the Ravens will look to justify the tournament’s No. 1 seed and, more importantly, win their first national title. In two previous visits to the Final 8 in 2011 and 2013, the Ravens were crushed, losing all four games. This time, they’re led by a group of veterans: Seniors Heather Lindsay, Jenjen Abella and Catherine Traer join juniors Elizabeth Leblanc and Nicole Gilmore in the starting five and there’s a maturity and confidence that comes along with that experience.
The message this time: Play hard. Believe you can be the best. Live in the moment. Don’t look too far ahead. One possession at a time. One game at a time.
The Ravens, who beat Queen’s 49-41 to win the Ontario title last weekend, start the nationals with a quarter-final matchup against eighth-ranked Victoria.
“We play against the host and they’re going to have a really good crowd,” said Charles. “We played Queen’s last week and they had a very good crowd. So we’re used to a hostile environment. The kids believe in each other, the leadership internally is awesome. We haven’t lost in a while and when that happens, there’s a belief in our team, there’s a belief in our players and there’s a belief in the coaching staff. When that happens, things tend to take care of themselves.”
Carleton’s men’s team, meanwhile, will be looking for its seventh straight national title at the U Sports Final 8 in Halifax. Winners of 12 titles over the last 14 years, they enter the tournament as the No. 2 seed after losing 86-79 to top-ranked Ryerson last weekend in the Ontario final. They’ve won four times as a No. 2 seed (2006, 2007, 2011 and 2014).
While losing every now and then can provide a slap in the face, a good dose of humility, the Ravens have turned failures into success through a buy-in of a system that preaches the sum of its parts, not individual play.
“When we play as a team, we put ourselves in position to win,” said Ravens guard Kaza Kajami-Keane on Wednesday. “When we don’t, we’re not as strong. We pay attention to the defensive side of the ball, that’s Carleton basketball. If we don’t do that, it’s not going to work for us. Defending and rebounding is what we have to focus on.”