EDMONTON — It was a grind-it-out night at the Saville Community Sports Centre in Edmonton on Friday, as the Manitoba Bisons and No. 6 ranked Alberta Golden Bears spent long stretches trying to solve each other's defence.
In the end, a run of points late in the third quarter proved the difference for Alberta, who won 75-70 to improve to 8-3. Manitoba lost their fourth straight game to fall to 3-8.
Rashawn Browne was the points leader for Manitoba, dropping 22 on a relatively efficient 7-for-17. He added three rebounds, three assists, and two steals. James Wagner had a double-double with 15 points and ten rebounds.
"I thought it was a very competitive game, but we didn't shoot the ball very effectively, particularly in the second half. They really did a good job not giving us a lot of good looks, and that's what they do," said Bisons head coach Kirby Schepp.
"You have to credit their defence. They're not dynamic, but they're very solid and they're always in the right spots and they're very disciplined and they make it hard to get good looks."
Tyus Jefferson led Alberta with 21 points and eight rebounds, while veteran power forward Brody Clarke earned another double-double effort with a 17 point, 13 rebound performance.
Despite the Bisons out of the playoff picture to start the second half of the Canada West season, they went toe-to-toe with the Golden Bears who are always tough on home court.
Alberta held a slim 34-30 lead at the half, and Clarke provided the bulk of the Bears offence in the early stages of the third quarter, but the combination of Andre Kelly, Adam Paige and Geoffrey James helped Alberta increase their lead to 11 and take a 61-50 lead into the final quarter.
But the Golden Bears offence went MIA in the fourth quarter shooting just 17.6%, and they went ice cold, but Manitoba was unable to take advantage.
Alberta didn't make a bucket until 6:08 left in the game after Jefferson hit a pull-up jumper to give Alberta a 63-55 lead.
Manitoba made just one three-pointer from Andre Arruda and two free throws from Browne during that span.
It looked like Jefferson was going to be the only Golden Bear to score in the fourth quarter as the product of Utah made a circus shot with a floater through two Bison defenders and followed it up with another highlight reel finish under the basket to give Alberta a 67-59 lead. It took a free throw from Clarke with 2:36 remaining to break Jefferson's scoring run for the Bears.
Despite the Golden Bears distancing themselves in the final minutes of the game, Manitoba showed no quit until the final buzzer and competed hard against Alberta.
The two teams meet again tomorrow at 8 PM CT, with the action available to watch on CanadaWest.TV.
