Much encouragement from some old faithful readers. Greatly appreciated.
B4 I get into another posting I really should do some mundane housework and list our home games for the remainder of the season. Here they are:
Friday, January 16 at 8:00 PM
Royal Military College
(Staff and Faculty Night, Libations available)
Saturday, January 17 at 8:00 PM
Queen's University
(must win rival)
Friday, January 23 at 8:00 PM
York University
(suburban cousins)
Saturday, January 24 at 8:00 PM
Laurentian University
(sleeper team always dangerous)
Friday, February 6 at 8:00 PM
Carleton University
(Top Dog)
Saturday, February 7 at 8:00 PM
University of Ottawa
(Top Ten Team)
Six home games. Six chances to get one up on the opposition.
As an aside, Sports and Recreation had a Christmas Party last Saturday at the northern home of Ivan Joseph, the new AD. The potluck fare was extrodinaire. Ribs, meatballs, ham, 2 x rice, curried chicken, wrapped hotdogs, creamed green beans, roast potatoes, salads, pine tarts, cheese cake. Of course, the unchallenged hit was the Deefirst spinach dip with accompanying french stick. The hit of the night, Mr. Joseph taking the lead in a rousing rendition of "Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer" as a prelude to the Secret Santa gift exchange. Other notable events; plethora of kids running hither and thither, tobogganing in the backyard, Mr. Epp facilitating a no-eating-curried-chicken-on-the-white-carpet initiative, egg nog. Compliments and thanks to the Joseph crew for a hosting job that covered all the bases.
Merry Christmas
to all in the CIS/Ryerson basketball community.
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
Tuesday, December 9, 2008
Three & Out!!
Persistent pressure to return to the keyboard has finally won the day and here I am back in the saddle hacking out my take on basketball fortunes at Rye Hi. I used to do this back in the 20th century to small amounts of fame and no fortune, but this is the 21st century and my smack has changed. I'm using this blog instead of a electronically distributed newsletter and I'm using a nome de plume instead of Coach Dean. For those of you who enjoy this off-the-beaten-path journalism you have Ken Murray to thank who gave me the final push back to Keyboarding 101. Before our recent mauling of the Badgers he asked me when I was going to write the newsletter again because he really enjoyed reading it. So here we go again.
Let me add a disclaimer. This blog in no way is sponsored by Ryerson and does not represent the official viewpoint of Ryerson or the Ryerson Men's Basketball Team. Commentary is not purposely written to offend or hurt anyone and if it does....well, you are just much too sensitive and probably should not be reading this in the first place. That said, this blog will definitely take a lighter and more satirical look at the basketball culture in the Canadian Interuniversity Sport (CIS) then most folks are accustomed to read in standard media type thingies. If needed more disclaimers will be added in the future.
About the Ryerson University Rams Men's Basketball Team. We play out of the venerable Kerr Hall Upper Gymnasium at 379 Victoria Street in the heart of downtown Toronto. If you want to see what we look like, who is coaching and stuff like that then go to http://firefly.ryerson.ca/sportsandrec/sports/varsity/index.cfm?team=110&page=profiles
At the holiday break da Rams are sitting in 4th spot in the Ontario University Athletics (OUA) East Conference. Having run roughshod over the OUA West teams to the tune of a 5-3 record our sights are now set on the other seven teams in our conference. Play starts January 9th against Ottawa in Ottawa.
We are not going in with much, but a lot of belief in ourselves. that just might carry the day for us. In the meantime we do have a couple of individuals ranked in the Top Ten in the country. Scoring: #1 with a 26.56 ppg average is Boris Bakovic. 3-point FG%: #5 is Afeworki Gebrekerestos at 50%. Rebounding: Boris #6 with 9.67 rpg. FG%: Joey Imbrogno is in a three-way tie for 9th at 57.14%. More to come.
The Ryerson University Rams Men's Basketball three game winning streak began back on November 22, 2008. We played Laurier to a 10 point win that had everybody wondering what happened. Peter Campbell, the head coach at Laurier had hosted our coaching staff the night before at Morty's. This place has the best chicken wings in the country, so of course we were more than happy to accept his invitation and ribald hospitality. Listening to his stories of his team's exploitations kept us enthralled until the last drop of chicken wing juice. Meeting us at half-court after the game Peter's bombastic oratory was somewhat muted as he told us in rather colourful language what he thought of our visit to town. The game, well Forki had a nice game potting 13 points in 18 minutes of play. For the uninitiated Forki the Freshman has a real name and it is, Afeworki Gebrekerestos. A name that is much too long for this body of work and a game which is also hard to describe in a thousand words or less. To put it simply his game is a combination of theatre, art, sport and intelligence. Our other freshman of note, Josh Budd, chipped in 12 points. More on him in later postings. Of course, none of this feel good, fuzziness would have come to fruition without our main man, Boris Bakovic knocking down 35 points. More on him in later postings. The final, 85-75, a 20 pt reversal from the half, 30-40.
Let me add a disclaimer. This blog in no way is sponsored by Ryerson and does not represent the official viewpoint of Ryerson or the Ryerson Men's Basketball Team. Commentary is not purposely written to offend or hurt anyone and if it does....well, you are just much too sensitive and probably should not be reading this in the first place. That said, this blog will definitely take a lighter and more satirical look at the basketball culture in the Canadian Interuniversity Sport (CIS) then most folks are accustomed to read in standard media type thingies. If needed more disclaimers will be added in the future.
About the Ryerson University Rams Men's Basketball Team. We play out of the venerable Kerr Hall Upper Gymnasium at 379 Victoria Street in the heart of downtown Toronto. If you want to see what we look like, who is coaching and stuff like that then go to http://firefly.ryerson.ca/sportsandrec/sports/varsity/index.cfm?team=110&page=profiles
At the holiday break da Rams are sitting in 4th spot in the Ontario University Athletics (OUA) East Conference. Having run roughshod over the OUA West teams to the tune of a 5-3 record our sights are now set on the other seven teams in our conference. Play starts January 9th against Ottawa in Ottawa.
We are not going in with much, but a lot of belief in ourselves. that just might carry the day for us. In the meantime we do have a couple of individuals ranked in the Top Ten in the country. Scoring: #1 with a 26.56 ppg average is Boris Bakovic. 3-point FG%: #5 is Afeworki Gebrekerestos at 50%. Rebounding: Boris #6 with 9.67 rpg. FG%: Joey Imbrogno is in a three-way tie for 9th at 57.14%. More to come.
The Ryerson University Rams Men's Basketball three game winning streak began back on November 22, 2008. We played Laurier to a 10 point win that had everybody wondering what happened. Peter Campbell, the head coach at Laurier had hosted our coaching staff the night before at Morty's. This place has the best chicken wings in the country, so of course we were more than happy to accept his invitation and ribald hospitality. Listening to his stories of his team's exploitations kept us enthralled until the last drop of chicken wing juice. Meeting us at half-court after the game Peter's bombastic oratory was somewhat muted as he told us in rather colourful language what he thought of our visit to town. The game, well Forki had a nice game potting 13 points in 18 minutes of play. For the uninitiated Forki the Freshman has a real name and it is, Afeworki Gebrekerestos. A name that is much too long for this body of work and a game which is also hard to describe in a thousand words or less. To put it simply his game is a combination of theatre, art, sport and intelligence. Our other freshman of note, Josh Budd, chipped in 12 points. More on him in later postings. Of course, none of this feel good, fuzziness would have come to fruition without our main man, Boris Bakovic knocking down 35 points. More on him in later postings. The final, 85-75, a 20 pt reversal from the half, 30-40.
On the night of Friday, November the 28th postering was brought to a new height in the upper attic of Kerr Hall. Guelph's Jay Mott was having a great game shooting 4 for 7 from beyond the arc, causing a verbal frenzy from G4 (Glenn Taylor) and the rest of the Ryerson coaching staff. Then in one ill-fated last-man-standing moment Jay got himself posterized on TSN "Top 10 Plays of the Week"(#4). It was a coast to coast run by Ryerson's 6'1" junior guard, N'Krumah Hylton, ending in a monster one-hander over the under the net Mott, who subsequently fell to the floor. If you haven't seen it yet, then check it out here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fxpwhKXS0yc&eurl=http://firefly.ryerson.ca/sportsandrec/sports/varsity/index.cfm
The rest of the game, well we won by 17, 92-75. Once again we were down at half, this time, 44-50. There is a trend here, and that is that we are getting better. Living up to his storyline Boris had 35 pts in 36 minutes while pulling down double digit (12) rebounds.
The next night Brock Badgers were in the house that Howard Kerr built. Without a majority of their starters this was not the same team that won the National title last March. Mind you they still had their floor leader, PG Brad Rootes, who is now their off the floor leader as an assistant coach to the above referenced Murray. Rootes is back after a stint in the Ukrainian Professional League this past Fall. Too many guys with bulging leather coats patrolling the sidelines for his liking. We finally bucked our trend and won the first half, 42-30. The final 19 pt spanking, 85-66, was enough to have the rabid Badger fans yelling for G4 to pull the starters well before the game was done. Obviously, they have not had to endure the kind of trimmins the Rams have been handed the last few years. When you have lost like we have you are not sure if this is the light at the end of the tunnel or just another locomotive bearing down on us. Let's not let up until we know for sure.
Balanced scoring for the Rams. Boris had 19. His other hip, Ryan McNeilly had 14. Josh had 14. Joseph Imbrogno (remember that name there is much more to come from the 6'10" Sr.) had 14. Brock's sensational freshman, Didi Mukendi had 26 pts. Brock may be rebuilding,but it is not going to be long before they are a major threat again. Like March '09'. Nah, but isn't that what they said last year. You never know with coaching legend Ken Murray at the helm.
More postings to come.
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