WINNIPEG – In a gritty battle that featured 17 combined steals and 39 points off turnovers, the Manitoba Bisons came out on top, improving to 15-4 on the season with a 69-63 win over Mount Royal at IGAC. The Cougars fell to 10-9 but are still post-season bound.
 
Manitoba led from start to finish. The Cougars went on a few runs of their own, paced by a combined 32 points from two-way stalwarts Keivonte Watts and Kole Scott, but every time, the Bisons had the answer.
 
Bisons guard Mason Kraus finished with a career-high 11 assists, recording the third double-double of his career with 11 points as well. Kraus was just two rebounds shy of his first career triple-double.

The Winnipeg product's 102 assists lead Canada West and are fifth-most in the nation. The All-Canadian candidate has now recorded over 100 assists in the regular season in three straight campaigns.
 
Daren Watts also recorded his third career double-double with a team-leading 16 points and ten boards, while Cieran O'Hara kept up his team-leading average with nine rebounds. Every member of Manitoba's roster scored a bucket in the win.
 
Kraus was matched up with Watts, a top five scorer in Canada West, throughout the game, holding him to six points in the first half. Watts gained momentum in the second half on the back of 13 combined steals from MRU, led by four from Daniel Owoeye, but Kraus and the Bisons continued to play their game.
 
"It was a little shaky at some points. They went on a little run. We just knew we had to combat it. Keivonte is going to hit shots, it's what he does. If he has a guy in his face he's still going to hit it. I felt sometimes I got clipped on screens, and [Watts] is very good at getting body-on-body contact," said Kraus.
 
"He's a good player. I just have to keep letting him take the shots he wants to take, because he'll take bad ones. He's going to hit some, but you have to live with it."
 
Kraus was double and sometimes triple teamed on offence, and he often found the open man. On three occasions that was O'Hara who put down an emphatic dunk each time, including one where he flew in for a one-handed jam so hard that he bruised his wrist.
 
"A lot of teams have started to double my ball screens with a hard show. I knew Cieran was probably going to be open," Kraus added.
 
"I didn't think [MRU] was going [to double] that much. Usually teams do it for half a game and then switch, but they stuck with it, hoping they could beat us without me really scoring. That just shows our depth with Cieran getting down, [Manyang Tong] getting some points, Daren scored 16 tonight, and Tito [Obasoto] had nine. Everyone's getting their chances. When they're taking me away, I trust the guys to finish it off."
 
A 5-0 run from the Cougars late in the third, on the back of a Dray Walburger three and Watts layup off a steal cut the host's lead to 53-50 entering the fourth. But Kraus gave his side back the momentum, finding a cutting O'Hara for a two-hand rim-smashing dunk.
 
Just after, Daren Watts finished off an alley-oop from Kraus as Manitoba expanded their lead to eight.
 
A Kole Scott (prep teammate of Kraus and Bisons forward Jonam Kazadi) no-look pass to Sam Barnie cut Manitoba's lead to five, but some key rebounds late from O'Hara and a clutch bucket from rookie Taven Vigilance helped secure a Bisons win.
 
"We just kept playing, kept fighting," said Kraus.
 
"We got some easy ones. We kind of settled for threes at some point, I did too. But when we started getting to the paint, they couldn't do anything to stop it."
 
The Herd can secure first place in the Prairie Division of Canada West, and the number two seed overall, with a win tomorrow in the rematch at 7 pm.