By Aleksa Cosovic
The Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU) Bold men’s basketball team continued their winning ways Thursday afternoon, overcoming the University of Calgary Dinos in overtime with a tight 101-99 win at the Mattamy Athletic Centre.
“We played a really good team today,” said head coach David DeAveiro. “There’s so much we can learn from this game in terms of how to play with a lead and how to be organized.”
The Bold were riding a six-game win streak going into this matchup against the Dinos, with their most recent victory coming against the Waterloo Warriors at the Naismith Classic on Oct. 14. The blue and gold ended up winning the tournament with an undefeated record of 3-0—picking up wins against the Concordia Stingers and Saint Mary’s Huskies in their other two contests.
The Bold started the game with a strong display of defensive aggression, using the energy from the home crowd—packed with young fans from a school day trip—to their advantage.
Fourth-year guard David Walker and third-year forward Aaron Rhooms would lead the way for TMU in the early going—combining for 17 points of the Bold’s 21 after 10 minutes of action.
Walker scored the first bucket of the game—initiating an early momentum swing for the blue and gold.
The Toronto product recorded a team-high of three steals and scored a game-high of 33 points on 57 per cent shooting from the field.
“I feel like I played well on both offence and defence,” said Walker. “I got steals, I scored [and] I shot the ball well. I just tried to make sure I did it on both ends.”
Rhooms went 3-3 from long range in the first, while the team shot 71.4 per cent from beyond the arc and 44.4 per cent on the game.
“We knew what we had to do to win this game”
Walker wasn’t the only Bold player to put up double-digit figures on the stat sheet. Fifth-year guard Cameron Ramage dropped 14 points, fifth-year forward Lincoln Rosebush recorded a double-double with 15 points and 11 rebounds while Rhooms went off for 25 points on 80 per cent shooting from distance.
“We knew what we had to do to win this game. We just had to go hard and have trust in each other. I like the team right now, we’re doing very good. We can all score,” added Walker.
The Bold continued their hot start. A defensive miscommunication from Calgary would lead to a wide-open corner three opportunity for Ramage, which he would capitalize on—giving TMU a 16-4 lead.
TMU was up by as much as 14 in the quarter and would close it out leading by a score of 21-13.
“We moved the ball and shared the ball,” said DeAveiro on his team’s performance in the opening quarter. “When we move and share the ball, we’re so good. If we want to play one-on-one, we wouldn’t be that good.”
The second quarter would see the Dinos claw their way back into the contest. After trading baskets with the Bold in the opening minutes, Calgary would go on a 10-0 run to cut the Bold’s lead to one, forcing a TMU timeout.
A corner three from the Dinos after the timeout period gave the visitors their first lead of the game.
“We stopped moving the ball. We got lackadaisical on defence, we had some breakdowns. But, that’s a good quarter to watch tape on and we’ll learn from it,” said DeAveiro.
Calgary went on to outscore the Bold 30-9 during the quarter. Dinos fourth-year guard Noah Wharton would cap off a 23-5 run for the visitors after sinking a contested three-point shot right at the buzzer, bringing the Calgary lead to seven at the half.
“There’s so much we can learn from this game”
After struggling in the second quarter the Bold would gather their footing right from the jump in the third.
The Bold outscored the Dinos by 13 in the third and would lead by a score of 68-62 heading into the fourth quarter.
The fourth started off as a back-and-forth-contest until Calgary’s third-year guard Javier Ramos-Yzquierdo sank a running layup to give his side a one-point lead, forcing DeAveiro to call a timeout.
The tightly contested quarter saw the Bold maintain a one-point lead with 30 seconds left in the game.
Rosebush sank one of his two free throw opportunities to bring the Bold’s lead to two. But, the final possession of the game saw Dinos first-year forward Gurshan Shran turn on his defender and finish with an easy bucket under the rim to tie the game at 88 and send it to overtime.
Walker was the X-factor for the Bold in the final five minutes of play, scoring seven of the team’s 13 overtime points.
Despite missing his final two free-throw attempts, Walker grabbed the rebound after a three-point miss from Wharton that would have given the Dinos a one-point lead.
Calgary would fail to get off one more shot attempt before the final buzzer and TMU would take the victory, extending their win streak to seven.
The Bold will begin their regular season against the Lakehead Thunderwolves at home on Nov. 3.
“[Lakehead] is good. They were top 10 in the country last year. It’s going to be a tough test. There [are] no easy games in the [Ontario University Athletics], so you have to be ready to play every night,” said DeAveiro.
UP NEXT: The Bold now travel to Buffalo, N.Y. to take on the Canisius Golden Griffins on Oct. 21 in their final pre-season matchup at the Koessler Athletic Centre.
Leave a Reply