On The Road

The Final 8 field is officially set after representatives from the CIS came together to seed the national men's tournament that will start Friday in Halifax.

Here was my original prediction, late Saturday night:
1. Concordia
2. UBC
3. Brandon
4. Windsor
5. Acadia
6. Carleton
7. Ottawa
8. St. Mary's

Obviously, the red ones are the seedings I ended up being wrong on, but if you look at it, there really is only one mistake in that, and that's Carleton not being harshly penalized for losing the OUA final on Saturday. That was sort of the first domino and, in hindsight, I likely shouldn't have dropped them as far as I did.

Here, then, are your first-round match-ups:
(1) Concordia vs (8) St. Mary's
(2) UBC vs. (7) Ottawa
(3) Carleton vs (6) Acadia
(4) Brandon vs (5) Windsor

Posting my previous thoughts on the seedings, I suggested that I thought a Brandon-Carleton match-up would be a good one for the Bobcats and that was certainly not meant to diminish the potential for Carleton to once again win this thing. Obviously, no one in Canada would be cheering at getting Carleton in the first round. However, I just think speaking purely about match-ups, it's one that would have favoured BU because of the Bobcats athleticism, and ability to go greyhound and turn games into track meets. Conversely, Carleton would love to lock you down but we saw a bit of it in the Wilson Cup final on Saturday against Windsor that perhaps the Ravens can be susceptable to teams that have that sort of make up.

As it is, the relatively inexperienced Bobcats get a totally inexperienced Windsor team that is making its first nationals appearance in 25 years. The Bobcats boast just two players who have played in Halifax (Yul Michel and Adam Hartman) while the Lancers are going in completely wet behind the ears. To be honest, I think this is the biggest toss-up game of the first round, although Ottawa and UBC has some intriguing plot lines as well.

One of the red flags I raised about the Bobcats potential as a national contender was their inexperience in Halifax and, specifically, their ability to shoot the ball in an arena setting. The Bobcats are a very perimeter-oriented offence and, say what you want, but shooting in that enviroment — when you're used to basically playing in a glorified high school gym all season — requires a major adjustment. I think it's going to be integral that BU finds its touch from the outside early but also balances that with the understanding that their inside and mid-range game is very likely to be the key to whether they move on to the second round or get bounced in the first round for the third straight time.

This is why Windsor presents some difficulties for the ultra-athletic Bobcats. The Lancers are deep with talented bigs — and that's not overlooking BU's posts — and in a game between two largely inexperienced teams that will be battling nerves and new surroundings, points in the paint, rebounding and second-chance opportunities are going to be the biggest factors in my mind.

UPSET SPECIAL: I'm taking a hard-working Ottawa Gee-Gees squad over the UBC Thunderbirds. If this doesn't come through as an upset then I think you're seeing all four top seeds move on to the second round. (Even as I type that, however, I don't feel comfortable with the prediction. It's just been that kind of year).

UBC has gotten grittier on the defensive side, something I think was lacking in its past entries into the nationals. The big question will be whether Ottawa can clamp down and keep the Birds from running and crashing. The UBC big men aren't traditional post-up players: They get most of their rebounds and points from crashing and they do it well. The beauty with UBC is that it can rotate in a handful of talented posts and not really lose a step between any of them. Its backcourt, on paper, is an all-star team with Chris Dyck, former all-Canadian Adam Friesen and Canada West MVP Casey Archibald.

Again, though, the Thunderbirds are going to have to show they can play lockdown defence and win what could be an ugly game. In their defence, they did show that ability to grind out wins during the Canada West Final Four, proving that maybe they do possess a Halifax-style game after all.

One final note, on Acadia and Carleton. It's a tough draw for the Axemen who have hit their stride at exactly the right time. Acadia's doing great things with its depth, as evidenced by the championship win over St. Mary's on Saturday when AUS POY Paulo Santana fouled out with a few minutes to go in the game and the result still very much in the balance. I think this ends up being a low-scoring, gritty game and, if you consider Acadia an overwhelming underdog, then those types of games are the ones that underdogs salivate for. The Axemen can't get down to Carleton like they did against St. Mary's (down 16 with 10 to go). It just won't work. If the scoring remains low, if the Axemen can control possessions and be efficient with those possessions, then you might just have an upset.