VANCOUVER – Thanks to solid defence, key late scores, and clutch free throw shooting, the University of Calgary Dinos escaped with a 72-69 win Thursday night to advance to the national semifinal.

Trailing by three with just 63 seconds to play after Dele Ogundokun hit a huge three for McGill, the Dinos got the ball inside to David Kapinga for a lay-up to pull within one. After forcing a travel call, Calgary got it down low again, drawing a foul to send Jhony Verrone to the line. The Montreal native made no mistake to give Calgary a one-point lead at 70-69, and a Thomas Cooper steal drew another foul to seal the three-point win at the stripe.

It wrapped up a tense, hard-fought national quarter-final at the Doug Mitchell Thunderbird Sports Centre in Vancouver as two conference champions went toe-to-toe. The usually high-octane Dinos found themselves stymied on the offensive end of the floor for much of the night as the McGill defence – third-best in the nation – made it tough all night long.

"They have a great basketball team," said Dinos coach Dan Vanhooren, who leads his team to the national semifinal for the fourth time in his career. "I was proud of our defence, I thought they held their own. We were pretty stagnant on offence in the fourth quarter, almost like we were frozen. At the end, we finally started moving the ball, we get a foul called, and we got to the line. We should have had a lot more assists and a lot less turnovers tonight."

Kapinga, who scored the hoop to bring the Dinos within one, was named Calgary's player of the game after an 11-point, four-steal, four-rebound night on 32 minutes of work.

"David Kapinga was tremendous defensively for us," said Vanhooren. "In the end, we win with defence with Thomas making the steal. Our goal was to contain them and win the rebounding – and that ended up winning the basketball game. For once it wasn't just us putting up a big offensive numbe,r but digging down defensively and that won us the basketball game. Hopefully, we can put two and two together going forward."

Canada West MVP Cooper led the way with 21 points for the Dinos, also hauling in a game-high nine rebounds. Verrone added a dozen, followed by Kapinga's 11.

For McGill, Ogundokun's 19 points led the way, with Jenning Leung chipping in 15 for the Quebec champs.

The Dinos went 21-for-26 at the free throw line, led by seven from Cooper, while McGill struggled to go just 5-for-11 – which turned out to be a key difference in the contest. Calgary also won the rebounding battle by a 34-30 margin.

The win advances Calgary to the national semifinal round for the first time since 2010, where they will face No. 1 Ryerson and look to head to the national championship game for the first time in a half-century. That game will tip off Saturday night at 6:30 p.m. MT (5:30 p.m. local), live on Sportsnet 360 and www.cis-sic.tv.

-UC-