MONTREAL, QC – Sports – (With files from Scott Morrison) The Lakehead University Thunderwolves men’s basketball team began the University de Quebec à Montreal (UQAM) Classic tournament with a 83-69 win over the McGill Redmen on Wednesday evening. 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 quickly 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 perimeter 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 stated postgame, “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 blatant 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 9 pm tomorrow night.”
The men’s team will play the host Citadins tomorrow evening at 9 pm.