CALGARY – In a high-octane Canada West Quarter-final that featured a combined 73 three-point attempts by the two teams, the fourth-seeded Calgary Dinos men's basketball team overcame an early deficit and walked away with a 98-84 win over No. 5 Trinity Western Saturday night inside the Jack Simpson Gym.

In a game that saw TWU jump out to a big lead early and both teams go on sizeable runs throughout, it was a 30-16 performance by the Dinos in the fourth that proved to be the difference as Calgary now advances to take on Victoria in a CW Semifinal next weekend in BC.

"This was a good team win," third-year guard Aidan Smith said postgame. "When you've got five guys on the floor flowing together, shooting the ball – that's what you really want to see. They (Trinity Western) shot the lights out. They put the pressure on.

"This was what you want to see when you go to a basketball game. You want to see buckets, action, pace, two teams going at it. I'm glad we put on a show; glad we got the win. It was a good one today."

TWU started the game lights out. The Spartans connected on eight of their first 10 shots and finished the first quarter shooting 50 percent (12-24) from the floor, including drilling five threes in the opening frame to build a 29-17 lead after one. Josh Belvin had the early hot had, scoring 14 in the first 10 minutes for the visitors.

While the Spartans' hot shooting only slightly cooled off in the second, the Dinos defence forced a number of turnovers and limited TWU to 10 fewer shots to help close the gap. Calgary started the frame on a 12-0 run to knot things up at 29-all, only to see David Mutabazi get hot, scoring 10 of his 15 first-half points in the second to put TWU back up by eight at 44-36. Declan Peterson got things going late in the first half on both ends of the court and a late triple from Aidan Smith made this a one-point game at the break.

"We got punched in the first quarter," Dinos head coach Dan Vanhooren said. "We played a little nervous in the first and we lost a little bit of ourselves defensively there. But we battled. I was super proud of them to get within one by halftime after being down by as much as we were, and it was our defence that got us there."

Things stayed the same in the third, with both teams generating offence in a variety of ways in the free-flowing game that repeatedly brought the crowd to its feet. A triple from Nate Petrone to closed the third with things knotted up at 68-68.

Petrone stayed hot to start the fourth, scoring the first six points followed by a triple from Wharton as the Dinos created their largest lead of the night to that point at 77-68. Mutabazi and Marcus Shankar answered with back-to-back threes by TWU and another jumper by Mutabazi closed the gap to 77-76 with 6:29 to play and the Spartans were going to go away quietly.

But that proved to be as close as it would get down the stretch, as Calgary stayed hot and the Spartans dealt with two injuries in the final minutes as the Dinos closed things out on a 21-8 run to advance to the semifinals.

"I thought we played well tonight," Spartans' head coach Trevor Pridie said. "It was a one-possession game basically the whole night. Super unfortunate break that (Josh Belvin) sprains his ankle with about six minutes left. Losing him, and then Jerric (Palma) rolls his ankle – arguably our two best guys sprain their ankles in the last six minutes. That's just a really crappy break.

"Calgary's such a good team, too. They're No. 3 in the country. They're deserving of that. They shouldn't be a four seed. We knew we had a really good test with these guys – Petrone and Wharton are the best backcourt in the country, in my opinion. To beat them, you've got to play you're A game and you've got to catch some breaks. I thought we were right there. 

"It was a good game of runs. We got up early, and they came back. It was a really good game between two really good teams. I just wish this was a semifinal game instead of a quarterfinal game, but it is what it is."

Mutubazi finished this one with a game-high 28 points on 11-16 shooting to go with eight rebounds and five assists. Belvin added 18 in 22 minutes, while Palma (14 points) and Shankar (11) each also scored in double figures.

Wharton led the way for the Dinos with 25 points to go with six assists, four rebounds, two steals and a block. Petrone added 24 and eight assists, while Smith poured in 22 on 6-11 shooting from behind the arc. Peterson also had a big night and finished with 12 points and nine boards while also adding three blocks and two steals in a strong overall defensive performance.

-UC-