By Eli Shupak
The bubble burst on the Ryerson Rams men’s basketball team Sunday night.
Following a one-hour conference call amongst the six-member CIAU Wild Card Committee, the Alberta Golden Bears and McMaster Marauders were selected as the wild card teams going ot this weekend’s National Championships in Halifax. The result puts an end to the Rams’ 1994/95 season, one in which they believe was worthy of a trip out east.
“I really don’t understand,” said disappointed Rams coach Terry Haggerty. “I don’t know what else Ontario East had to do. We showed a clear domination of Ontario West this year. When Brandon beat Winnipeg on Saturday night, I thought we had it.”
Ryerson, along with U of T and Laurentian, the top three teams in Ontario east, compiled an 18-4 record against Ontario West over the course of the year. Ryerson and U of T were a combined 6-1 against Guelph and McMaster, the top two teams in the West.
All this was included in Ryerson’s application as a wild card team. But it wasn’t enough to warrant them a spot in the Nationals this year.
“Those were the type of stats they used to throw in our face the last five years,” Haggerty said. “All we’ve done is left the objective stats and results to speak for themselves but obviously that wasn’t good enough. I think people went by more subjective things this year. Ultimately it got down to (McMaster) being ranked higher than us throughout the year.”
Diane St.-Denism, who was in charge of Sunday night’s conference call, said this wasn’t the case.
“Everything was taken into consideration and discussed at length,” said St.-Denis, co-ordinator of the National Program at the CIAU National Office in Ottawa. “We talked about performances prior to Christmas, after Christmas, tournaments, play against common opponents, conference play and non-conference record. The committee felt strongly that McMaster and Alberta were the top contenders.”
Seven applications were submitted for the wild card berths but Ryerson and Winnipeg were the only other teams considered.
“The committee felt that the records and how those teams were ranked by the coaches all year spoke very strongly for the strength of both teams selected,” St.-Denis said. “It was a majority vote.”
While the National Office would not release the vote’s final figures, they did say “Ryerson’s application was part of the discussion on the conference call.”
Haggerty figures the decision was based on the first half of the year when McMaster was at its best.
“Our argument was that (McMaster) played and beat some good teams in the early part of this year but all of their games except three were in their gym,” Haggerty said. “Everybody else was putting stuff on the line at Christmas and McMaser doesn’t play in a Christmas tournament.”
The 1994 runner-up McMaster Marauders are seeded sixth this weekend and ironically open the Nationals against the Ontario East U of T Varsity Blues, who are seeded third. The Victoria Vikings meets the Concordia Stingers, the top-ranked Brandon Bobcats face the Cape Breton Capers, while the defending champion Alberta Golden Bears take on the Guelph Gryphons. The three-day tournament begins Friday at the Halifax Metro Centre.
Despite losing three key starters in Alex Beason, Ainsworth Slowly and Lui Cinello, the Rams believe they can still contend for a spot in next year’s National Championships.
“As long as we don’t lose anyone academically, we’ll have an excellent core of people here,” Haggerty said. “We have some people coming up who we think are going to be very good.”
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