StFX to face No. 1 Carleton in opener

They’re the wild card facing a host team that has lost one game all season, and they’ll do it without one of their best players.

But Steve Konchalski is thrilled to have his St. Francis Xavier X-Men back at the CIS Final 8.

"It’s been a couple of years," said Konchalski. "We got into a comfort zone of being there almost every year, so going back is going to be fun."

It’s the seventh trip in 10 years to the Canadian basketball championship for StFX, which won the AUS six times in seven years from 2000-2006 before bowing out in the conference semifinals each of the past two seasons.

The X-Men head to Ottawa as the wild card after losing the AUS championship game to Dalhousie last Saturday. They’re the No. 8 seed, facing a quarter-final against the No. 1 Carleton Ravens on Friday (9 p.m. Atlantic).

And they’ll be without leading scorer Tyler Richards, who remains on the sidelines after being charged with assault stemming from an incident on Feb. 21.

In a rematch against a Carleton team that defeated them 83-61 at the Rod Shoveller Memorial Tournament on Jan. 4, Konchalski said his X-Men will need to put forth the kind of team effort they displayed in an 89-60 drubbing of UPEI in the AUS semifinals.

"Nobody’s going to replace Tyler Richards," said Konchalski. "We need everybody to step up their game a notch, and we really have to emphasize working together as a team."

No one but Richards on the X-Men roster has reached the nationals before, though StFX still has plenty of talent in a lineup led by conference MVP Christian Upshaw.

Konchalski said the team will look to make better use of its athleticism, something the Ravens stifled in their last meeting.

"Obviously they’re not No. 1 in the country for no reason," Konchalski said. "But we learned a lot from that game, and hopefully we can make adjustments.

"We have to make our pressure defence a factor in the game. … I just want us playing loose and aggressive at the same time. That’s the way you want to play in a national championship situation. It’s a fine line sometimes."

Courtesy Chad Lucas, The Chronicle Herald