A big 18-2 second-half run propelled the University of Alberta Golden Bears to a 74-63 win over the Regina Cougars on Friday night in Canada West men's basketball at the Centre for Kinesiology, Health & Sport.
The Cougars actually led for the majority of the game until the big run by Alberta, which started with the Golden Bears down by five with two minutes to go in the third and ended three minutes into the fourth with the visitors up by 11. The Cougars cut the lead down to three with four minutes to go, but only scored two more points the rest of the way as Alberta pulled away for the win.
Mamadou Gueye led Alberta (8-6) with 23 points, finishing 7-for-15 from the field and 9-for-11 from the free throw line. Joel Friesen added 15 points and seven rebounds, while Kenneth Otieno had 13 points and Youssef Ouahrig was all over the stat sheet with seven rebounds, six assists, and five points. Sebastien Denault gave the Golden Bears a spirited 21 minutes off the bench, finishing with six points and a team-leading nine rebounds.
Jonathan Tull led the Cougars (7-8) with 25 points and six rebounds in the loss, and also led all players with 38 minutes played. Wearing an unfamiliar No. 11 jersey for much of the game after leaking some blood onto his usual No. 15, Will Tallman finished with 16 points for the U of R.
Like the women's game a couple hours earlier, this game got off to a slow offensive start – and it was even slower than the women's, as the teams were deadlocked 6-6 a full seven minutes into the contest. And also similar to the women's game, it was the Cougars that got the offence rolling first as the U of R finished the first quarter on a 12-0 run that gave the home side a 10-point lead heading into the second. The Cougars led by as many as 11 in the second quarter, but Alberta hung around and trailed by only four at the break. The U of R remained in the lead for most of the third quarter until the Golden Bears' big run, which included three triples – two by Friesen, and one by Ethan Dixon.
Alberta had to recover from a rare off-night from the perimeter. The Golden Bears entered the game shooting just under 40% from downtown for the season, but were just 6-for-23 on Friday. And the Cougars finished with almost identical numbers, going 6-for-22 as a team from three-point range. Alberta shot 48% to Regina's 36% on two-point field goal attempts, and also outrebounded the Cougars by a 47-32 margin while having a 14-6 edge on second-chance points.
The two teams will finish off the weekend set on Saturday night. Tip-off is scheduled for 8 p.m. at the CKHS (canadawest.tv).