By Christian Lander
MONTREAL — Ryerson’s men’s basketball team lost its upper hand when it travelled to Lower Canada over the weekend.
The Rams, who entered the weekend ranked seventh in the country, had their hopes for an undefeated season dashed in their first OUA regular season in Montreal against the Concordia Stingers Friday night.
However, the tough 95-82 loss to the Stingers meant that the Rams were fired up for their game against the McGill Redmen on Saturday.
Their energy wouldn’t go to waste as they pasted the Redmen for an 81-72 win.
“It was a must win after [Friday] night,” Rams’ guard Sam Gilbert said after the game. “We lost to Concordia and we knew we needed to build from [Friday] night and make the improvements.”
Ryerson had a slow start Saturday, which was painful because McGill was able to shut down Ryerson’s penetration to the basket and score at will.
The second half was very different from the first and revealed very quickly why the Rams are ranked in the national top ten and the Redmen aren’t.
In the second half, McGill revealed its mediocrity with a slew of mental errors, turnovers and missed baskets.
On the other end of the court, Ryerson just kept coming with strong play in the post, solid passing and a great outside game.
“We were poised, we didn’t lose our heads, if we ever did we got it together,” said Ben Gorham, who netted 18 points for Ryerson in the win. “We stayed together as a team. We got the rebounds, we made the stops, we moved the ball a little better than the Redmen.
A split in Montreal that showed two very different looking Ryerson teams and revealed a lot about this team and the direction they will need to take if they want to be on top this year.
“We need to work on mental focus,” Gorham said. “We weren’t focused against Concordia. If we can bring it together, we’ll be fine.”
Ryerson will look to improve its 1-1 record this Friday at home against the York Yeoman.
The Rams will play York at 8 p.m. this Friday night in Kerr gym. Admission is free with a student ID.
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