Wrap it up

A few final thoughts from Halifax after a real good week of basketball wrapped up for one last time in the Nova Scotian capital...

To deal with the championship final, I said to anyone who would listen prior to the game that I thought Aaron Doornekamp would be the big factor for Carleton, and obviously he was. He hit two gigantic threes and the second one sealed BU's fate and was not well defended by the Bobcats at all.

Ironic, too, because the BU defence all game long was outstanding I thought. Yul Michel locked up Osvaldo Jeanty and he shot poorly from the field as did the entire Ravens team. Jeanty said after the game that "they didn't make my life difficult, I thought I made my own life difficult" in reference to the defensive match-up and his shot selection. I couldn't disagree more and I thought it was a completely misguided comment to not at least tip your hat to an oustanding defensive effort. There were some 6,000 people in the building and a lion's share of them would have totally disagreed with that statement.

That said, Carleton head coach Dave Smart did acknowledge the effort right off the bat. He mentioned that most people will see the poor shooting numbers of both teams and suggest it was a bad offensive game, but that would be to disregard how hard and how well the teams defended.

I agree with this. Yes, there were open looks missed by both teams, many from distance, but I have yet to see two teams battle defensively like these two did on Sunday. When you're clamping down on every possession, when you're having virtually every shot challenged with a hand in your face and then you manage to actually get a good look... well, those shots also become tougher.

I told coach Smart following the game that I thought as good as Michel's job on Jeanty was, so too was the job the Ravens did on Chad Jacobson, the Bobcat gunner. They knew full well he could hurt you from the perimeter (he had killed two teams prior to that game) and they made things very hard for him. He got virtually nothing in the way of open looks at the basket and they took away most of his catch-and-shoot chances. In the end, he hit two of his four threes and the last one was a pretty tough make where he curled off a screen and hit a quick release three that made it 51-49 at the time.

And that's what I'll remember from this championship more than anything is two teams absolutely beating up on each other with tremendous D and playing with all the intensity you expect from a national title game. Both teams kept raising the bar and Carleton — to steal (and paraphrase) a Vince Lombardi quote — just happened to be ahead when time ran out.

So those are the things I'll remember. That and the fact that Aaron Doornekamp pushes off every time he puts the ball on the floor.