MacEwan Athletics and UBC Athletics
VANCOUVER – Trailing by just six points at half-time, the MacEwan Griffins appeared poised for an even greater result than the heart-filled effort they put forward in a 96-72 loss on Friday against the nationally-ranked UBC Thunderbirds.
Then the rebounding happened. And the turnovers.
UBC won both those battles and outscored the Griffins badly in the third quarter to skate to a 93-66 victory in Canada West men's basketball action on Saturday night.
"UBC is big, long and talented," said Griffins head coach Eric Magdanz. "They sort of wore us down over the course of the game, but not without us putting up as good a fight as we could."
That fight included four players in double digits for points – Lincoln Anderson (14), Adonis Monfort-Palomino (13) and both Deonte Doslov-Doctor and Jake Notice (12). Monfort-Palomino added a game-high eight assists.
It also included the Griffins beating the Thunderbirds in field-goal percentage (45.0 to 41.0), three-point efficiency (37.9 to 27.6) and assists (15 to 13).
"I think technically we did everything right," said Magdanz. "We played together. We had better shooting numbers. We had higher assist numbers than them even though we had less field goals. We played together, we played hard.
"At the end of the day, it came down to two things for us. One, rebounds – they were just bigger than us and they were a better physical team. And we didn't do a good job of taking care of the ball tonight. Their defensive pressure caused some turnovers for us and led to some points in the second half that ultimately became the difference."
MacEwan committed 25 turnovers to eight for UBC. And the T-Birds outpaced them on the glass (49-37 in rebounds). Another stat in the home side's favour: they got to the charity stripe a lot (17-for-23, compared to just 1-for-4 for the Griffins).
Thunderbirds head coach Kevin Hanson appreciated the overall contributions from his squad which improved to 10-0 on home court this season.
"I thought a couple guys came in off the bench and gave us a defensive spark and once we were able to get into the transition game and get some easy buckets the momentum just started to carry and guys relaxed a little bit and had some more fun." Hanson continued. "We needed it. I thought the Griffins played well, I thought they shot the ball extremely well in the first and second half and made us earn it and so it made us better."
Conor Morgan led the Thunderbirds with 19 points, while Taylor Browne chipped in 16 and both Phil Jalalpoor and Grant Shephard had 13. Luka Zaharijevic, who really hurt the Griffins on Friday night, was held to just five points this time but did lead UBC with 11 rebounds.
UBC improves to 13-3 on the campaign, while MacEwan falls to 4-12 – now three games shy of the final playoff spot.
But the Griffins are a young team building for the future and two games full of battle like they just had in Vancouver can only help them moving forward.
"We hold our heads up high and move onto next weekend," said Magdanz. "We've had growth in our effort and dedication and execution as a team. If we continue along this path and continue to develop individually, there's no telling where we can be."
Next up for MacEwan is a home-and-home series with cross-town rival Alberta (15-1), a match that kicks off on Thursday night (8 p.m., Atkinson Gym), which is the Griffins' annual White Out celebration of excellence. Athletes, coaches and teams who've won awards in the last year will be honoured during the contest.
