2009 Summer Universiade: Men’s basketball
Comeback falls short as Russia tops Canada

X-Men basketball point guard Christian Upshaw is in Serbia competing with team Canada at the World University Games, and in their third tournament game against Russia, dropped an 89-77 decision, setting up a must-win situation against Israel in order to qualify for the quarterfinals. Upshaw netted 8 points for Canada in the losing effort.

BELGRADE, Serbia – The urgency missing for most of the night finally made an appearance in the fourth quarter, but it was too little, too late for the Canadian development men’s team in an 89-77 loss to Russia to open Phase 2 of the men’s basketball competition at the Summer Universiade.

Summer Universiade website: www.universiade-belgrade2009.org
Team Canada website: www.universitysport.ca/belgrade

A disastrous start for Canada along with sub-par free throw shooting all night was their demise in the end as Russia jumped out to a big lead early. Much as had been the case in the previous meeting between the two teams at a pre-Universiade exhibition tournament, an 80-74 Russian victory, the Canadians were forced to play catch-up from the very start.

Early in the second half, the Russians increased their lead to the largest margin of the night, 32 points, with Canada unable to execute anything on offence. With a 28-point advantage in the final two minutes of the third quarter, Russia seemed poised to sail through the rest of the night.

Cue the comeback.

Jacob Doerksen, the 2008-09 CIS player of the year from Trinity Western University, broke a lengthy Canadian drought from outside with his team’s first three-ball of the night late in the third quarter, with Halifax’s Christian Upshaw of StFX hitting a buzzer-beating trey shortly thereafter.

That 6-0 mini-run to end the third ballooned into a 16-0 stretch early in the fourth as Canada finally found its groove on offence. Russia was held off the scoreboard for the first three minutes of the final stanza.

With Russia in foul trouble, the Canadians continued to whittle down the lead, pulling within five on Chris Dyck’s second of the night from beyond the arc with 2:26 remaining. A foul, a turnover, and a couple of missed free throws later, however, the Russian lead had jumped back up to double digits.

“We put ourselves in such a precarious position, and we just challenged them at halftime about playing with pride and character,” the University of Guelph’s Chris O’Rourke, head coach of Team Canada. “We fought back and were outstanding defensively in the second half, we did a great job getting to the foul line, we did a great job on the offensive boards, but we still missed 17 free throws.”

Winnipeg native Dyck had two clutch threes in the comeback and quarterbacked the offence, leading the team with 18 points on the night.

“It seemed like we came out real tentative, almost like we didn’t have a chance,” said the star UBC guard. “We knew that we did have a chance, but we came out sloppy and had 15 turnovers in the first half. In this tournament point differential is so big, so we wanted to claw back as much as we could.”

In his strongest performance of the Universiade, the University of Calgary’s Ross Bekkering from Taber, Alta. posted a double-double with 10 points to match 10 rebounds, while Dyck’s UBC teammate Josh Whyte of Calgary put up nine points.

Canada had trouble with Russian big man Nikita Shabalkin all night, with the 6-foot-9 forward scoring 21 and hauling down 14 rebounds.

The defeat sets up a must-win situation for Canada (2-1) Tuesday night against Israel (4-0), with a berth in the tournament quarterfinals on the line.

A Canadian win over Israel, combined with an expected Russian victory over Italy, would create a three-way tie for first place in the intermediate group stage with the top two advancing to quarterfinals. The first tiebreaker is point differential, meaning every Canadian hoop against Russia could mean the difference between moving on and going home.

Heading into the final night of preliminary action, Israel has a clear advantage with a plus-59 points differential, with Canada at minus-3 and Russia minus-14. A loss to the Israelis would not necessarily eliminate Canada, but it would require an Italian victory over Russia in order for Canada to have a chance at the medal round through yet another three-way tiebreaker.

Regardless of the math, Canada will need a better effort against Israel, which the Canadians beat 83-54 in the second round at the 2007 Universiade in Bangkok, Thailand en route to a bronze medal.

“We don’t really have any time off,” said Dyck, “we just have to play tomorrow with that sense of energy and that sense of urgency as we did in the second half.”

“There’s no time to dwell, we have to focus on the positive and learn our lesson,” said O’Rourke. “We have to come to play tomorrow night against Israel, who is very good, and all we can do is build on what was positive from tonight and bring better focus from the beginning.

“Our goal ultimately was to get tonight’s game under nine (points). It’s certainly not great, but considering where we put ourselves, we’ll take it.”

STAT LEADERS
Boxscore: http://results.ub2009.org/results/ENG/BK/BKR173A_BK0400I1100034ENG.htm

RUS 26-24-20-19: 89
CAN 16-12-20-29: 77

Canada
Points: Chris Dyck (18), Ross Bekkering (10), Josh Whyte (9)
Rebounds: Jacob Doerksen (11), Ross Bekkering (10), Boris Bacovic (7)
Assists: Josh Whyte (3)

Russia
Points: Nikita Shabalkin (21), Dramir Zibirov (17), Euvgeniy Kolesnikov (16)
Rebounds: Nikita Shabalkin (14), Alexey Zhukanenko (7), Euvgeniy Kolesnikov (6)
Assists: Euvgeniy Kolesnikov (4), Dramir Zibirov (3)

TEAM CANADA SCHEDULE (all times Belgrade time)
2009 Summer Universiade
July 2                Group C: Canada 89, Italy 80
July 4                Group C: Canada 100, China 83
July 6                Phase 2: Russia 89, Canada 77
July 7                20:00                Phase 2: Canada vs. Israel
July 9                TBD                 Quarterfinals
July 10              TBD                 Semi-finals
July 11              TBD                 Bronze & final

About the Summer Universiade
The Summer Universiade is an international multi-sport event that takes place every two years, and is second only to the Olympic Games in the number of participating athletes and countries. The Universiade is open to competitors between the ages of 17 and 28 in the year of the Games who are full-time students at a post-secondary institution (university, college, CEGEP) or have graduated from a post-secondary institution in the year preceding the event.

Story courtesy Canadian Interuniversity Sport