VANCOUVER - The No. 4 University of Calgary Dinos men's basketball team suffered its first conference loss in nearly three months, as they had a cold third quarter that snowballed into a 107-75 loss to No. 5 UBC Thunderbirds Saturday evening from the War Memorial Gym.
The score was tied 48-48 at halftime but the T-Birds blew things fell apart in a hurry in the third, with UBC outscoring the Dinos 37-10.
One night after the Dinos extended their win streak to 13, the T-Birds forced a weekend split as the two teams now gear up for postseason play. Calgary closes the regular season at 15-5, while UBC moves to 14-6.
James Woods saved perhaps his best performance of the year for his final game at home. The 5th-year guard dropped 28 points on 12-18 shooting along with six rebounds and five assists. His fellow graduating senior and team captain Brian Wallack had an all-around performance with 11 points, eight rebounds, four assists, two steals and two blocks.
Fareed Shittu and Adam Olsen added 20 and 16 points, respectively, for the T-Birds. On the side of the Dinos, Nate Patrone led the way with 22 points while
Javier Ramos-Yzquierdo had 11 points and six rebounds.
Both teams came out of the gates firing in the first quarter with a barrage of three-pointers. Arnaud Konan drilled two early on with Shittu and Tobi Akinkunmi each hitting as well to put UBC up 16-11.
The Dinos, however, went on a 9-2 run of their own to close the opening frame and led 28-25 at the break. They stretched the lead out to 33-25 to begin the second, which would prove to be their high-water mark for the night.
From there, the Thunderbirds began to assert control over the game. A triple from Micah Jessie cut the lead to just one, and after the Dinos tried to push out in front once more, Woods responded with a putback and a step-back three to close the half with the score tied.
Determined to get the win on his seniors' night, Woods was electric in the third quarter – outscoring the entire Dinos team 16-10 by himself while shooting 7-7 from the field.
He had plenty of support as well, with Shittu, Akinkunmi and Wallack all draining threes as UBC poured it on. An alley-oop from Konan to Shittu made it 77-58, and the Thunderbirds didn't let up, scoring another seven straight capped by a layup from Woods at the buzzer to make it 85-58 at the end of the quarter.
UBC was in cruise control in the final frame as the margin of victory grew to 32 points by the end of the night.
The Canada West playoffs take place in their entirety from February 21st to 25th, hosted by the University of Manitoba. The Dinos and Thunderbirds will both be part of the 12 teams heading to Winnipeg to fight for Canada West supremacy and the chance to go to the national championship tournament.
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