The Peak

Clan’s trip to Ottawa put on immediate hold

By Simon Wilson

SFU had an opportunity Friday night to advance to the CIS national championship tournament but fell to the Calgary Dinos 82-69 at UBC.

The Clan fell behind early and despite a couple of runs at various points of the game, could not recover from their poor start. The fate of the team’s season now rests in the hands of the tournament selection committee who will select one at-large team to fill out the field of seven automatic bids. Since joining the CIS in 2003, the Clan men have never advanced to the national championship tournament.

After the game, fifth-year guard Kevin Shaw explained the disappointment in coming so close to making the nationals. “It’s disappointing because the nationals were on the line but we’re going to come back in 24 hours and go back at it.” The Clan will face the loser of the game between the University of Saskatchewan and UBC to decide third place in the conference.

SFU put themselves in the position of playing catchup almost right from the opening tip. Calgary went on a 18-2 run after the Clan opened the scoring. By the time the first quarter ended SFU trailed 24-12. Shaw said: “I don’t want to say we were flat but we weren’t aggressive enough and we didn’t attack the ball well enough.”

After a clearly frustrated Scott Clark berated his players during a timeout, the Clan responded by cutting the lead to six just minutes into the second quarter. The run, however, was short-lived as the Dinos found their outside shooting and ran their lead to 42-28. Chas Kok was the Clan’s best player in the first half and gave the team hope going into the break when he drilled a long trey as time expired to make the score 42-31.

Late in the third quarter the Clan got on their biggest roll of the game as Sean Burke hit a three from the elbow to cut the Calgary lead down to two on the end of a 9-0 run. The run was brutally ended on the final play of the quarter as an over-aggressive Greg Gillies picked up a foul on a made three that was converted for the rare four-point play. The play clearly sucked the life out of the team as Clark threw his arms up in disgust. The two point spread was as close as SFU would get again before they faded in the final quarter.

While the Clan as a team spent most of the night in foul trouble, the Clan’s third quarter run was largely thanks to the fact that Calgary’s First Team All-Star Ross Bekkering was on the bench after picking up his fourth foul of the game. The Clan had almost no answer for Bekkering in the paint as he had his way with the Clan’s undersized interior defense. Bekkering had 12 points in the first quarter alone and finished with 22 as well as providing two thundering dunks to put an exclamation mark on the victory. All five of Calgary’s starters finished with at least 12 points and shot 47 percent from the floor.

Eric Burrell lead the Clan in scoring with 16 points as well as grabbing 10 rebounds for the double-double. Burrell struggled early in the game but found his rhythm in the second half, knocking down several jumpers during the Clan’s third quarter run. Kok put together a 15-point effort as he had continued to show he is one of the team’s best players. Shaw rounded out the scorers in double figures with 14 points. The Clan shot 38 per cent and just eight for 25 from long range which is generally their greatest strength.

SFU also locked horns with the crosstown rival UBC Thunderbirds on Saturday in their third meeting of the year. For full scores, recap, and to see whether or not the Clan qualified for the nationals, check athletics.sfu.ca.