“Ottawa against Carleton, a stadium filled with fans, it’s always great energy playing in this environment”
It was a rowdy night on Friday for the annual Capital Hoops Classic as the strong 17-2 Gee-Gees battled out against the 15-4 Carleton Ravens. Both teams held leads and the game was played within two points for the first two quarters. It seemed to be a close game, that was until something clicked for the Gee-Gees in the third quarter.
For the second year in a row now, the Gees would take down the Ravens by a landslide 79-66 with defence being the main player in this game. With the slick guards of Dragan Stajic and Jacques-Mélaine Guemeta, complemented by the brutal shot blockers of Brock Newton, Matthew Smith, and Owen Kenney, the Gees outclassed the Ravens on both sides of the floor.
The Gees, entering the game on a 13-game win streak, were looking to make it 14 against their cross-town rival Carleton Ravens. The Ravens’ Xavier Spencer started the game hot with two jumpers, where the Gees would only make two of their first four free throws.
Gees guard Dragan Stajic was picking up some dimes early on, connecting with Khalifa Koulamallah for a swift bucket, before draining a three himself, and then finding the rookie Owen Kenney cross court for a corner three. The first quarter was filled with hustle defence, keeping the score low, but the Gees leading 16-14.
Jacques-Mélaine Guemeta started off hot for the Gees picking up a smooth picked pass, and getting the lay-up, followed up by Koulamallah with a three, and then a nice putback from Justin Ndjock-Tadjore, followed up by another Guemeta three, man oh man the Gees were on fire starting the second quarter.
After a large dry streak from the Gees, back-to-back threes were drained by Stajic and Koulamallah. The Ravens would turn things around after the five-minute mark, where they would eventually reduce their deficit to two once again at the half.
Spencer started the Ravens out with a three starting the second half, putting them in the lead 44-43. Ndjock-Tadjore got the Gee-Gees hyped across the stadium with an and-one bucket, followed by a brutal standing jam rallying the momentum.
After a Ravens rebound, the outlet pass was intercepted by Guemeta, opting for a high risk high reward pull up three, draining it down. Now on a heat check, Guemeta drained another three gaining a game high 16 points, followed up by Kenney for another three and the Gees were up 12 nearing the end of the third. In the final minute, Choudhary called iso, tween, cross, stepback, green for the three ball and the Gees would finish up a massive half 68-52.
The towering tree from Halifax, Matthew Smith, started the scoring in the final quarter with a finessing arch in the key, followed by a three from Koulamallah. Smith was on something guarding the outside, picking up two blocked threes, making the Ravens offense think twice before they pulled from deep. The block party continued as Kenney swatted a Ravens layup straight to the ground. The Gees would outplay the Ravens for the remainder of the game, and would take this Capital Hoops Classic game no doubt by a landslide 79-66.
It’s no doubt that having 15 blocks, 10 steals, and shooting 40 per cent from three point range is going to win a basketball game, this team is filled with two-way talent.
Stajic, who now needs nine assists in the team’s final two games to become the program’s all-time assists leader, talked about his performance not only facilitating the floor, but also running the glass and picking up seven rebounds on the game as a guard.
“I mean in this kind of game a lot of their shots weren’t going to fall you know,” said Stajic. “I’m there trying to help out my guys, obviously I’m one of the smaller guys on the team, but I just do anything I can to help the team win and that was my mentality.”
He followed up by talking about the remainder of the season. “This is the last stretch of the season so going into the last couple games of the regular season and going into playoffs we wanted to build our momentum, and our championship habits. We’ve been rolling for a little bit now, so we want to keep it going and hopefully build together some more wins and then get that end goal we want.”
The clear star offensive player for the Gees in this Capital Hoops edition, Guemeta, spoke about his performance and his third quarter heat check. “After the steal, I didn’t mean to shoot it, I don’t know what happened, I just shot it and it went in, I was like ‘we on, I gotta keep shooting.’”
When talking about the environment of Capital Hoops he said “It’s always a different energy playing at TD place, yes it’s another regular season game, but then it’s also Capital Hoops. Ottawa against Carleton, a stadium filled with fans, it’s always great energy playing in this environment. And after [I graduate] I hope I can play in these kinds of arenas everyday.”
Head coach James Derouin and the team have done it again, and are on a roll this season, now on a 14-game winning streak, and currently sitting number one in the OUA. After the game Derouin spoke on how the team really pulled away in the second half.
“Both [offence and defence], there was a stretch where we were up 10 points in the second quarter, and then just made some silly mistakes, it felt like we were not playing well, and I was worried because I would have said that that second quarter could have cost us the game. So I felt that if we just took care of those silly mistakes that we would be fine, and that’s exactly what happened, and we just played better and pulled away [from the Ravens].”
Well said from the team to fully encapsulate how exciting it was to be a Gee-Gees fan at TD Place, the environment of the Capital Hoops Classic is like no other. Make sure to tune into the teams remaining regular season games next weekend at Queen’s and Ontario Tech and then the playoffs the following weekend, as I believe this team momentum is unstoppable.
