CALGARY – A chance to clinch a playoff spot wasted last weekend in Brandon, the University of Calgary Dinos women's basketball team faces a must-win scenario Saturday night when they face the Lethbridge Pronghorns in Southern Alberta.
A sweep of lowly Brandon would have secured fifth-place in the Prairie Division and the likely wild card selection for the Dinos, but foul trouble led to disaster for Calgary in Friday's opener last week as the Bobcats won just their third game of the season by a 75-66 score. A night later the Dinos righted the ship and blitzed Brandon by 32 points, 96-64, setting up Saturday's showdown in Lethbridge.
Calgary enters the game at 8-11 on the year, while Lethbridge sits at 7-12. A win by the Horns would see both teams finish the season tied at 8-12, but Lethbridge would win the tiebreaker by virtue of beating the Dinos in both meetings this season – so a Calgary victory is necessary to achieve fifth place.
Whichever team finishes fifth will enter the wild card selection phase, a complex calculation involving seven different criteria that will compare the fifth-place Prairie team to the fourth-place Pacific team, which will be Trinity Western. While many of the criteria cannot be calculated until all games in the conference are completed, both Lethbridge and Calgary would seem to hold the advantage by virtue of their head-to-head victories over the Spartans.
Regardless of the final wild card decision, the Dinos need to beat Lethbridge to even have a chance as a loss would snap a 27-year playoff streak for Calgary women's basketball. Not since 1982 have the Dinos watched the entire playoffs from afar, and that season Calgary finished tied for second but lost the tiebreaker in an era when only the top two teams qualified for the post-season.
The Dinos' success will depend on staying out of foul trouble and spreading out their scoring, which they were able to do effectively in their pasting of Brandon last Saturday. Six Calgary players finished in double-digit scoring, and no player played less than 13 minutes. The Dinos went the line 40 times in that contest and attempted 80 field goals, maintaining their spot as the second-highest scoring team in the nation.
Ashley Hill continues to pace the Calgary offence with her 15.5 points per game, third-best in Canada West, while
Alex Cole (11.9) and
Tamara Jarrett (10.2) are also averaging double digits and sit in the top 30 in the conference.
That their offence needs to continue to score is clear. But if there was ever a time for the Dinos' defence to step up big, Saturday night will be it. Calgary continues to lead the conference in points allowed, giving up more than 80 per game, and the Dinos average 22.5 fouls per game – the highest total in the country.
Many of those stats, of course, are by-products of the Dinos' run-and-gun style which allows them to put up 80 field goal tries and 40 foul shots against Brandon on nearly 100 offensive possessions in 40 minutes. But in their previous game against Lethbridge back on Jan. 9, a 90-83 Horns win, Calgary actually lost the possessions battle despite outshooting their opponents. Compounding the issues in that contest were 27 turnovers and free throw shooting at just over 60 per cent against better than 85 per cent shooting by Lethbridge.
The Horns' Stephanie Price leads her team in scoring with 14.8 points per game and leads the conference in assists at 4.7. Outside Price and Lauren Taal (14.4 ppg), the Horns do no have another double-digit scorer – although former Dino Becky Heninger is knocking on the door with her 9.6 average. Lethbridge comes into the weekend having lost six straight and seven of their last eight, with the only win in that stretch coming at Brandon a night after falling to the Bobcats.
The Brandon Bobcats have won just three games this season – and two of those came against the Southern Alberta rivals who will face off for the final playoff spot in the conference on Saturday night. Tip-off goes at 6 p.m. MT at the 1st Choice Savings Centre.
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