Cougars 101 Kings 77
CALGARY — The Mount Royal University Cougars put together a perfect game plan for the RDC Kings in the Alberta Colleges Men’s Basketball League final.
And the Kings couldn’t do anything about it as they dropped a 101-77 decision to the Cougars at MRU Saturday.
‘My hats off to that team, they played a phenomenal game,” said Kings head coach Clayton Pottinger. “We didn’t play our best, but even if we would have I’m not sure we could have defeated that team the way they played.
“What can you say it’s back to the drawing board this weekend and we may get another shot at them at the nationals.”
The Kings booked their ticket to the nationals Friday with a 93-77 win over the Grant MacEwan University Griffins while the Cougars downed the NAIT Ooks 88-74.
The Kings were never really in the game as they trailed 11-3 early and 28-17 after the first quarter. The Cougars had a letter perfect defensive scheme while the Kings gave the Cougars far too many open shots, which they didn’t miss.
“We didn’t execute or play well, mainly because they defended tougher than any team we’ve faced in the last little while,” said Pottinger. “That definitely threw us off. Plus we were scrambling and on our heals defensively. Our transition defence was really poor. We could hardly turn around and get our defence set before the ball was down our throats. When we did get a chance to set up it wasn’t bad.”
Cougars head coach Marc Dobell knew they needed a solid defensive plan to handle the Kings, who beat the Cougars at RDC three weeks ago.
“We had a good defensive plan coming in and executed it to a T,” said Dobell, whose team also hit 11 of 28 three-point attempts.
“We’re a three-point shooting team and this weekend we were shooting the ball really well.”
Five-year guard Steve Trinidad led the Cougars with 33 points, hitting five of seven three-point attempts.
“I have to mention him, we killed us, he had an awesome game,” said Pottinger.
At times Saturday it appeared as if the Kings had let down after clinching a trip to the Canadians, set for March 15-17 in Truro, N.S., but Pottinger disagreed.
“Our goal was to come in and win gold. In the huddle after last nights game we all said ‘one more, one more’ so we had our focus, we just didn’t execute. But this is a learning lesson for us. This is new to just about everyone on the team. We’ll stay humble and get better. I said to the guys after the game that there’s a lot of teams out there that have something to hang their hands as we’re still in the hunt.”
Despite the lopsided win, Dobell was still impressed with the Kings.
“I was a little bit surprised to see them in the final, but they’ve improved a lot since November to now Clay has done a tremendous job with them, working and developing them. We played them a few weeks ago and they beats us, so I’m impressed.”
Jamal Pryce led the Kings with 21 points while Rob Pierce had 14 points and seven rebounds and Eric Bakker 13 points. Karl Hoehne was named the Kings player of the game as he came off the bench and finished with five points.
Fifth-year guard Trent Offreins added 14 points for the Cougars, who have three fifth-year players and two in their fourth season. The Kings have only Sarain Soonias in his fifth season. And no none in his fourth.
• NAIT beat MacEwan 97-69 in the third-place game while on the women’s side Grant MacEwan downed MRU 89-57.
drode@www.reddeeradvocate.com