Men's basketball sweeps visiting team
By Michal Tellos
Sports Editor
November 19, 2008
 The Lancers men’s basketball team improved to 3-1 in OUA conference play this weekend, as they defeated the Toronto Varsity Blues and the Ryerson Rams in back-to-back home games.
Friday’s performance against Toronto was dominated by Windsor throughout, and the final score was 78-58.
The Blues were outscored and outplayed defensively in all quarters.
Greg Surmacz led the Lancer charge, as he recorded his second double-double of the year, scoring 18 points and grabbing 11 rebounds. Monty Hardware also added 16 points, and Andre Smyth had eight rebounds.
Saturday’s game, was in the words of Head Coach Chris Oliver, “ugly,” but the Lancers scraped out a win regardless.
As is characteristic of the team this season, they came out to a fast start, scoring quickly and playing waterproof defence.
However, this changed, as the teams got a lot closer in the second quarter, when Windsor started to crack a bit. The score was 36-30 Lancers at the half because of this sometimes sloppy and inconsistent defence.
Windsor essentially won the game in the third quarter, outscoring the Rams 25-14, building an insurmountable lead.
The Rams put up a close charge in the fourth, but they couldn’t finish, and the Lancers took the game by a 74-67 margin.
The Lancers were once again led by Surmacz, who had 23 points and seven rebounds. Also helping was hot-handed Isaac Kuon who made five from behind the arc, and finished with a total of 21.
Oliver is pleased with the win, but not the way it came.
“I think it was an ugly game really. We had stretches of dominance and stretches of complacency, and that’s what you get with that kind of effort. But we got our two wins out of the weekend, and that’s the whole point of what we’re trying to do. Now we get to go on the road for four games,” he said.
One of the team’s greatest concerns last week was consistency, particularly on defence. This problem was worked on, but it definitely still needs to be worked on.
“We did a great job yesterday of passing the ball, I think we had 18 assists on 30 baskets. That shows this team when they move the ball. Today we got a little too much into a dribble game, and less of a pass game,” he said.
The Lancers will now go on the road for the next two weekends, and the first stops will be against Laurentian and York on Nov. 21 and 22.
According to Oliver, some things need to be accomplished on the road, and if they are, everything should be alright.
“Every time you’re on the road you have to do three things: make free throws, get to the free throw line more than your opponent, and out-rebound them. If we can do those three things I think we’ll be successfully on these road trips,” he said.
When asked which game he was most worried about, Oliver stressed that in the OUA right now, every team is a threat.
“Any team in Ontario is pretty good right now. So it will never be like you can walk in the door and expect to win by 20, it’s just not that type of league this year. Everyone’s pretty good and everyone’s got talent,” he said.
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