BY HOWARD TSUMURA (VaristyLetters.ca)
Regardless of your rooting interest, one thing was clear Thursday night in the provincial capital.
The basketball gods give as well as they take.
Ethan Boag’s baseline corner jumper from just inside the three-point arc dropped through the irons at Ken and Kathy Shields’ place just as the final buzzer sounded, giving the hometown, No. 1-ranked Victoria Vikes (13-0) an epic 90-88 victory over the No. 2-ranked UBC Thunderbirds (10-4).
It was a 40-minute drama in which the visitors did everything they needed to do to put themselves in a position to win, with the sole exception of holding onto the basketball over the final 23 seconds of play.
And it was also a game in which the hosts, down two regulars including the reigning U Sports Player of the Year in Diego Maffia, somehow found the resolve to win despite an overall excellent defensive game plan by the Thunderbirds.
In a game tied 88-88 with 23.1 seconds remaining, UBC inbounded the ball from its own baseline, and were attempting to either score, or at the very least, force overtime.
Yet an untimely frontcourt turnover with 7.6 seconds remaining was eventually corralled by Vikes’ guard Geoffrey James and fed to Boag, the 6-foot-9 former Claremont Spartans’ forward, who instantaneously squared himself and flowed into a jumper which he was able to launch just before the game clock expired.
It was exactly what you would have found if you looked in the basketball dictionary under ‘buzzer-beating dagger’.
UBC, for its part, had shown incredible resilience throughout, and when its 6-foot-10 fifth-year forward Victor Radocaj rejected the Vikes’ 6-foot-11 Sergio Perira in the deep paint with 40 seconds remaining, UBC had an 88-85 lead and about as much momentum as a tight game like Thursday’s might allow.
Yet with 23.1 seconds left, Vikes’ super sixth man Renaldo Robinson was fouled in the act of shooting a triple.
Robinson hit all three to tie the score at 88-88, setting the stage for the UBC turnover and the Boag dagger. The silence between all three of Robinson’s makes was such that you almost could hear a pin drop, indicating the sell-out crowd at CARSA was likely 99 per cent Vikes’ fans.
From a Victoria perspective, winning without both Maffia and Shadynn Smid, both injured, was surely balm for their collective basketball soul.
From a UBC perspective, with a guaranteed berth at nationals by virtue of its host status, but a will to be playing their best basketball when it matters most, there were still positive moments… enough that — as the old adage goes — the baby couldn’t be thrown out with the bath water.
After a first half in which Victoria built a 56-45 lead and looked a hot second-half start away from creating even more separation, the ‘Birds played what might just be their best quarter of the season.
UBC went on a 17-3 run over a span of just 4:38, a run which started out as a 10-0 spurt on a fast-break layin by Fareed Shittu before culminating with a Micah Jessie three that gave the ‘Birds a 66-61 lead with 2:25 left in the frame.
UBC outscored Victoria 22-10 in the third, and despite eventually losing at the buzzer, held a deep Vikes’ group to just 34 second-half points after giving up 56 in the first half.
Robinson’s 27 points for Victoria led all scorers on the night, with teammate Boag not far behind with 24. James had 18 and Oak Bay’s Ryan Gallagher 11.
UBC got 20 points and seven rebounds from Shittu, as well as 18 points from point guard Brendan Sullivan and 11 from Adam Olsen.
As well, Radocaj, the much-travelled forward with stops at both Eastern Washington and Simon Fraser, played what was, dollars to donuts, the best game of his university career.
The big man came off the bench and over a 24-minute span in which he committed just one turnover, went 8-of-13 from the field for 19 points, to go along with five rebounds and four assists.
Over the course of UBC’s aforementioned 17-3 run, he finished at the rim off a bullet pass from Sullivan, kicked out to Shittu in the half-court for a trey, then grabbed an offensive board and fed Micah Jessie for a triple.
With 1:55 left in the third, Radocaj took another Sullivan feed, this one a lob for a slam dunk and a 68-64 lead.
In the fourth, getting a one-on-one post-up opportunity, Radocaj finished in the deep paint to give UBC its largest lead of the game at 10 points (82-72) with 4:55 remaining. He even hit a three-point hoop.
All of that forced Victoria to play desperate basketball down the stretch, which they did with three big surges: The first was an 8-0 run which pulled them to within 82-80 with 3:43 left and featured triples by both Gallagher and James; the second was Robinson hitting three straight free throws to tie the game 88-88 with 23 seconds left; and the last was the turnover which led to the buzzer-beating Boag jumper.
Three of UBC’s four Canada West losses have come against Victoria by margins of 13, 10, and two points.
Victoria plays host to UBC Okanagan on Saturday while UBC isn’t in action until next weekend when they play a pair at Trinity Western. The Spartans improved to 7-7 Thursday with a 98-87 win over the the UBC-O Heat at the LEC.
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