CIS Nationals — Day 1 (Night)

Not sure that there's anything to really discuss about the No. 1-ranked Alberta Golden Bears win over the No. 8-ranked UNB Varsity Reds in the first round of the men's volleyball nationals here Friday night other than to say it was an absolute dissection.

The Bears, behind CIS player of the year Joel Schmuland, basically beat the V-Reds down as you'd have expected from an undefeated team playing a sub-.500 team from the weakest conference in Canada. But what was most notable — and this will come as a surprise to no one who has watched U of A this season — was how deep the Bears were and how many weapons they threw at UNB. Schmuland had 12 kills, but middle blocker Justin Merta added nine and left side Ben Saxton another eight, all impressive numbers considering U of A won the sets 12, 17 and 21. After sporting the never-in-chic dead in headlights look for the first two sets, the V-Reds rallied a bit in the third and even held a late lead before a five-point Alberta run ended things.

So we move on to the second match of the night, which was one of the more compelling ones of the day with the Brandon Bobcats somehow pulling out a five-set win over the Dalhousie Tigers in the final match of the night.

The Bobcats won't shy away from the fact that they played fairly brutally for much of the match, yet somehow are moving on to the semifinal to take on Alberta. How did they do it? Depends who you ask.

Basically, and I'm stealing Dal coach Dan Ota's words here, both teams had stretches of playing terrible and playing well.

Brandon just picked the right time to play well.

Fourth-year middle blocker Joel Small, who part-timed with the senior national program this summer, stepped up like a veteran late, helping cue a key run in which BU won four of five points in the fifth set to turn a 4-4 tie into a 9-5 advantage. Kevin Miller aced in that span as well and, in a race to 15, a four-point lead is not necessarily insurmountable, but it often feels like it to the team that is on the short end of the equation.

So the Bobcats blocked and swung hard when they needed to but weren't pretty in winning.

So the national semifinals are Brandon-Alberta and an enticing McMaster-Laval match-up between a pair of teams that a number of people around the tournament thought would be one of the victims of a first-round upset.

In the end, you could say, the pollsters got it right.

The top four move on to Day 2.

See you there.

CIS Nationals — Day 1

EDMONTON — One half of Day 1 at the CIS national men's volleyball championship is down. And so are one half of the Canada West conference teams.

The Thompson Rivers Wolfpack and the Winnipeg Wesmen — seeded sixth and seventh respectively — could not pull off first-round upsets and were subsequently bounced from the championship side of the eight-team draw on Friday at the University of Alberta.

The result is that the Canada West, far and away the top conference in Canada, is left with only two teams with hopes of a national title and both of them are due up in the coming hours.

The No. 1-ranked Alberta Golden Bears are on the floor warming for their match with the No. 8-seeded UNB Varsity Reds, a team that posted a losing record in the three-team AUS. No one expects this one to take too long.

Following that the No. 4-ranked Brandon Bobcats will face the No. 5-seeded Dalhousie Tigers in one a toss-up match. The Tigers lost a bit from last year's fourth-place finisher but still have the services of first-team all-Canadian Sander Ratsep, who will get much of BU's attention. Dan Ota, Dalhousie's coach, told me Thursday night that you don't have to look much further than a stat book to see that the Bobcats are led by first-team all-Canadian left side Paul Sanderson and second-team all-Canada West middle blocker Joel Small. So it could very well come down to which team does a better job of shutting down the other's big weapons.

So that's our situation here in Edmonton. Updates from the night games coming later.

A year

We raised a glass for you tonight, Jonesy.

It doesn't really seem like a year ago that we lost you, and nor does it quite seem fair that we're talking about you in hindsight.

It was one year ago that I was on my way to cover a baseball game when I got the call from Hendo.

"Yeah Larky, ... Jonesy's dead."

Even though that entire day I was worried and skeptical about what was going on, I went off on that assignment knowing — KNOWING — that it was nothing to worry about. But then I had to turn the car back 180 degrees and meet up with everyone who was already mourning you.

I'm not going to go on and on about what you meant and how we miss you. You know that already and, more to the point, you're not the kind of guy who wants to hear that anyway.

I just thought you should know that we thought about you today. We thought about you this week. You're not far from us. We share stories about you and what you would be doing and saying if you had been there with us. Of course it always brought a laugh and a smile.

We had a beer, we had a shot and we had you in our hearts.

We'll see you again.

Online domination

Well it's come to this:

The Scrum.

Jeremy Sawatzky and I have started a new web site that will be updated with a weekly podcast, along with blogs and commentaries written frequently on a variety of topics.

I would suggest that that site will now get the bulk of my attention when it comes to writing and ranting, so if you like what has happened here (and there's no saying that you do), then shift over to www.thescrumbrandon.com and follow along.

See you over there.

Tick... tick...tick...

A big announcement will be coming in the next few days from the people who brought you The Point After on a somewhat consistent basis.

Think media megapower...

See ya back here in a couple days.

Totem Poll No. 4

Pardon the lateness of the newest poll, but a trip to Pittsburgh the last five days has kept me away from the computer, and happily so.

But I won't shirk my responsibility this week, especially considering the Canada West conference has shut 'er down for the holidays.

Here then, is the final Totem Poll of 2007. Oh, how far we've come:

1.(2) Calgary Dinos (9-1) — A sound beating of Saskatchewan on Friday, a sweep of their weekend, a seven-game winning streak and a UBC loss. It all adds up to the Dinos tasting top spot for the first time this season.
2.(3) Brandon Bobcats (9-1) — A pair of double-digit wins over Winnipeg won't make the earth shake, but the Bobcats are getting it done without their starting big man and 9-1 is 9-1. Still feels like something is missing with these 'Cats, though.
3.(1) UBC Thunderbirds (10-2) — Got soundly whipped by Victoria on their home floor, and we're not ready to push any panic buttons with the T-Birds. Still, this week was ripe for a shake-up.
4.(4) Alberta Golden Bears (7-3) — The Bears won't get a tonne of love here this week (in terms of climbing the ladder) simply because they beat up on the 98-pound weaklings of the conference (at Lethbridge, 114-70, 92-52). But the Bears, and some serious beatdowns they're giving out, are not going unnoticed.
5.(5) Victoria Vikes (9-3) — They probably deserve a bit more recognition, especially after nearly sweeping the Birds in Vancouver, but just don't feel right putting a team that sports just one 'good win' in conference play above the other four atop the leaderboard.
6. (8) Simon Fraser Clan (7-5) — Have won seven of their last eight and if they had just shown up to start the season (losers of their first four games), we'd be talking about them atop the Pacific Division. But they didn't, so we're not.
7.(6) Saskatchewan Huskies (5-5) — Middle of the road seems right for a team that has won a middling five of its last nine games and is sitting at .500.
8. (7) Regina Cougars (5-5) — Pretty inexcusable to lose one at home to Manitoba, a game that prolonged a losing streak that had reached five games.
9. (9) Winnipeg Wesmen (4-6) — The Wesmen hung tough with Brandon at home on Thursday before a late 17-2 run killed them. They usually get rejuvenated by their Wesmen Classic tournament at Christmas. For their sake they better: Second place in the Great Plains is now just one win away.
10. (10) Fraser Valley Cascades (5-7) — Perhaps Trinity fans would like to see their team get a bump for beating these guys in Abbotsford, but we're still not convinced. Still, UCFV gets a skunk-eye for dropping one at home.
11. (11) Trinity Western Spartans (4-8) — And why are we not convinced? We're still waiting for TWU to win back-to-back games this season.
12. (12) Thompson Rivers WolfPack (1-11) — Hard to fathom giving up 110 points to defensive-minded Simon Fraser.
13. (13) Manitoba Bisons (1-9) — Congrats to the Herd for getting off the schnied and doing it in Regina, a place suddenly losing its lustre for being a tough place to grab a win.
14. (14) Lethbridge Pronghorns (0-10) — Not much else to say here anymore, so we'll just provide the U of L fact of the week and this one is pretty straight forward: The 114 points given up against Alberta on Friday were the most given up by a team in 40 minutes of Canada West basketball since Jan. 21, 2006 (120, UBC at TRU) and only the third time in the past five years a team has hit that number in regulation. Yuck.

Totem Poll No. 3

The most action of the season this week on the Totem Poll, including some shuffling near — but not at — the top of the list.

Teams have one more weekend of action before breaking for the holidays and a glance at this coming weekend's schedule suggests there might not be much more shuffling happening before the focus turns to 2008.

Here then, is your dose of Totem Poll.

1. (1) UBC Thunderbirds (9-1) — Granted it came against Thompson Rivers, but yet another pair of thorough beatings (by 20 on Friday, 28 on Saturday) and the T-Birds are once again an intimidating regular season team. The post-season? Well, that’s a different story.
2. (4) Calgary Dinos (7-1) — Made a serious, SERIOUS statement at home this weekend by absolutely pumping an Alberta Golden Bears team that had started to assert itself in the conference.
3. (3) Brandon Bobcats (7-1) — Held serve at home against rival Regina and played some of their better basketball of the season in doing so while also playing without two starters. They are far from flawless, but they’re still getting it done.
4. (2) Alberta Golden Bears (5-3) — Alright, just settle down. The people at the Totem Poll Head Office are well aware of the fact Alberta has beaten the team directly ahead of it in this week’s rankings. Sincerest apologies, but barely competing in your biggest rivalry game is grounds for a drop.
5. (5) Victoria Vikes (8-2) — Still not convinced that the glossy record is completely indicative of how good the Vikes are, but they can’t be blamed for their schedule to date. Leaving them here in the middle of the pack and expecting a slide when some of the tougher games finally hit their sked.
6. (6) Saskatchewan Huskies (5-3) — Not everyone is excited about spending a November weekend in Lethbridge. Unless, of course, you get to play its men’s basketball team. The Huskies were the beneficiaries of what we’ll here on out refer to as “The Lethbridge Twwo.” Yes, in this case, there’s two Ws in two.
7. (7) Regina Cougars (4-4) — With Yuri Whyms hurt and Tarik Tokar sitting out Saturday after receiving a Jamal Williams elbow on Friday, the Cougars had a glorious chance to grab a split against the ailing Bobcats. Instead we’re sitting here essentially crowning a Great Plains Division champion in November.
8. (10) Simon Fraser Clan (5-5) — The Clan were dealt a tough opening to their season with three of their first four games on the road and two of them coming against ranked opponents. Now, however, they’ve won five of their last six and it’s no surprise that Greg Wallis has led them in scoring in each of those victories.
9. (9) Winnipeg Wesmen (4-4) — A true middle-of-the-road team and suddenly finding themselves with a chance to grab second place in the Great Plains before the end of the semester. Any measure of success in a big home-and-home against Brandon this week could move that process along.
10. (8) Fraser Valley Cascades (4-6) — Had a shot at moving up the chain by stealing a roady in Victoria, but the winless weekend means UCFV has now lost six of its last seven and early-season excitement has been been washed out by a nasty slump.
11. (11) Trinity Western Spartans (3-7) — Still trying to find their way, they’ve been off and on in the past three weeks after starting the season 0-4. Suddenly they’re in a spot to jump into the Pacific’s final playoff spot with a pivotal doubleheader against UCFV in Abbottsford starting Friday.
12. (12) Thompson Rivers WolfPack (1-9) — Falling further and further out of the picture in the Pacific but in-division clashes with Simon Fraser this weekend might give the Wolfpack at least the appearance of a pulse.
13. (13) Manitoba Bisons (0-8) — The same cannot be said for these guys who are four games out of third place and continually losing close games. Including non-conference, they're 0-4 in one-possession games and 0-6 — half of their games — in games decided by five points or less.
14. (14) Lethbridge Pronghorns (0-8) — Dating back to last season, the Horns have now lost 13 straight games and only two of those games have been decided by less than 10 points. It will take an act from heaven to keep that streak from running to 15 this weekend when they host Alberta.