McGill led by 2 at the half after giving LU a lesson in offensive rebounding (10 first half, 18 for game) and LU struggled offensively shaking off some Christmas rust. Ben Johnson was 3-5 for 10 points in the opening frame but LU also had 10 turnovers.
Second half McGill started quckly with Tristan Tremblay scoring 6 straight points in the paint before drawing a 3rd foul mid-way in the 3rd quarter and going to the bench. Lakehead took advantage by increasing the perimiter ball pressure in Tremblay's absence and used some better D and rebounding to get the offense moving.
Ryan Thomson got going in the second half with 18 points (20 for the game) and Greg Carter's defense was a major factor the entire game as his 7 steals in the game were a big part of LU forcing 23 McGill turnovers.
Lakehead pulled away in the 3rd and kept the lead around 10-15 points for much of the 4th.
Coach Morrison:
"While both teams showed some obvious holiday rust, I thought both teams also played very hard over the 40 minutes. At the end of the day we had many positives to build on, but also a few blantant weaknesses we must improve tomorrow - namely rebounding and shot selection early in the game. UQAM will provide tough match-ups for us and we have to re-group and get focused on them for 9pm tomorrow night."
An encouraging start to the tournament.
ReplyDeleteLocal CBC Radio in Thunder Bay had the LU victory over McGill as its lead item (!) on this morning's sports. Even ahead of World Junior hockey.
Any chance there will be a video feed of the upcoming games in Montreal?
Go Wolves!!
Unfortunately UQAM is not webcasting any of the tournament games.
ReplyDeleteWe will try to get the game highlights up at the very least.
Thanks!