CALGARY – As it often is when the University of Calgary Dinos and Alberta Golden Bears play, Saturday night's game was chippy and intense, and the hometown team took home a 66-57 victory the Jack Simpson Gymnasium.

Canada West leading scorer Thomas Cooper once again led the way on the board with 20 points, while freshman point guard Torrez McKoy added 12, with the whole dozen coming from beyond the arc.

"It was huge, especially against our archrivals," McKoy said, as his team improved to 6-3 on the season while Alberta dropped below .500 to 4-5 heading into the December exam break.

Calgary would get off to a 9-2 start, but Alberta would fight back and was down just 20-16 going into the second. As the game continued, so did the physical play.

With shoving after the whistle and plenty of trash-talking, the tight play went on as Cooper hit a three with 20 seconds left to give Calgary a 39-33 lead after 20 minutes.

The Golden Bears would win the third quarter by two and in the fourth made a big run, cutting into the Dinos deficit to make it 54-52 with just over seven minutes remaining.

Head Coach Dan Vanhooren called a time out and his team responded. McKoy hit a three to make it 57-52, followed by a Matt Ellis block which led to a big layup at the other end for Jhony Verrone to push the lead back to seven.

Then Cooper would score again at the 5:48 mark forcing Alberta to call time and the 7-0 run sparked the team to the nine-point victory, while holding their opponents to just nine points in the fourth quarter.

The Dinos' last victory of 2015 also marks back-to-back victories for the first time since opening weekend against Alberta and the first regular season win at home against the Bears since November of 2012.

The visitors were led by Mamadou Gueye, who had a double-double with 14 points and 11 rebounds, with Sebastien Denault scoring 13 and Brody Clarke adding 11.

The physical game certainly wasn't pretty as Alberta shot just 26.9 per cent from the field, while the Dinos shot just 32.4. Each team also took 31 three-point shots, with Alberta hitting just six and the Dinos eight. The Bears won the rebounding battle by a 54-42 margin.

The two teams will wrap up the regular season with the rematch on Feb. 20 in Edmonton, but there's plenty of basketball action for both sides before that one. Calgary rings in the new year with the Saskatchewan Huskies at home on Jan. 8-9, 2016, while Alberta starts up Jan. 15-16 when they host the Victoria Vikes.

-UC-