While McMaster's opening match-up at the CIS men's basketball championship evokes images of David vs. Goliath, the Marauders know the defending champion Carleton Ravens can be beaten. It just doesn't happen very often.
McMaster returns to the Final-8 for the first time since winning the OUA championship in 2006. The Marauders assume the host berth, vacated by Carleton after the Ravens made the OUA final last week in Toronto. Carleton enters the nationals as the second seed after being the top-ranked team in Canada for the entire season. The Ravens were dropped to the second-seed line after losing the OUA title to Ottawa, who moved up to the top spot.
"Our mindset has to be that we are coming into the tournament to win it. There is no easy path if we are going to win a national championship, because we know we have to play teams like Carleton, Ottawa and Alberta, "said Coach Amos Connolly. "I believe our players are looking forward to the challenge."
In a November match-up at McMaster, the Marauders played Carleton even for three quarters before the Ravens pulled away in the fourth for an 83-72 win. The Maroon had no answer for CIS player of the year Phil Scrubb, who scored a career high 44 points to carry Carleton to the victory.
To have any success against the high-flying Ravens, the Marauders will need to avoid any jitters from being on the big stage and playing in the cavernous Canadian Tire Centre. "I think it was pretty obvious that our guys had some nerves last week," said Connolly about the opening round loss to Ottawa at the OUA Final-Four. "Not to take anything away from Ottawa who played great, but we missed our first six free throws and only made 11 of 26 for the game. That's not what we usually do."
"We can't get down so much early like we did against Ottawa or things could snowball again. We will need to defend every possession and rebound like crazy, and if we do that we should be fine."
In the OUA bronze medal game versus Windsor, it was a much different group of McMaster players than had performed the previous evening. Building some momentum from the overtime win that brought the team to the nationals could be a key factor against Carleton.
The Marauders have been a very egalitarian team, with three players averaging double digits in scoring and another three hovering just under the 10-ppg mark. Multiple Marauders have been at the head of the gameday scoring parade this season, showing that depth is probably the team's biggest strength.
The Marauder-Raven clash will be the second opening round game at the Final-8 and is scheduled to tip-off Friday, March 7 at 2:30 p.m. The game is available via live stream on the internet at
www.cis-SIC.tv
Full event information can be found at the championship website:
http://english.cis-sic.ca/championships/mbkb/index
