Well for whatever question marks preceded the national men’s basketball tournament in Ottawa, the final product ended up — from a strictly basketball standpoint — to be a pretty good one.

People can squabble and beef about the location, about the bloated attendance figures and their accuracy, and what the quality of the field was (and yes, we at The Scrum have done all that), but the bottom line is what gets served up on the court and it’s hard to argue with the last couple of days of action.

And maybe that’s a misguided way of looking at it, to allow the final two games of the tournament (Acadia-Carleton and Brock-Acadia) to shape your overall impression of three days of games. Surely there were games that lacked artistic merit, but no one will say they weren’t totally compelled by the double-overtime thriller that — if it were played in the NCAA — would already have ESPN “Instant Classic” status stamped on it.

And Sunday’s championship maybe didn’t live up to that semifinal, but it wasn’t far off. Acadia makes a big surge in the second quarter, Brock makes a run of its own in the third and they’re neck and neck down the stretch. Ideally, that’s how you want your national final to go: Each team trading shots and both teams with a chance to win the game late on their own merits.

I thought Brock was deserving of credit on how it defended Acadia’s play coming out of the timeout and the Axemen needing a three. Brad Rootes hedged on a high handoff-rub, took away the dribble and forced a turnover with two seconds left.

And in the end, the Badgers really didn’t waver from what they were as a team: A squad that bombs threes like they’re running out of stock. They didn’t shoot it particularly well on Sunday (9-for-32), but there’s something to be said for sticking to what you do.

In the end, I’m happy for Brock. I always feel a bit more for the players than for the coaches, because the coaches will have more chances to get back there. The players have a shelf-life and when five years is up, it’s up. So for guys like Rootes, Rohan Steen and Scott Murray — who have been playing basketball together seemingly since the womb — it somehow seems right that their playing days, which have been so inextricably linked together for many years, ends in this way.

Conversely for Acadia, it was tough to see fifth-year senior Achuil Lual fighting back tears after what was his last game.

Which brings us to this: The CIS must stop the needless act of making the second-place team stay on the floor while the champion celebrates. Yes, they are to get their silver medals and yes I get the fact that they want to still recognize the other team on the floor, but that’s a gut-wrenching moment and one that I would argue most coaches and players would just as soon avoid. The NCAA did away with it, and the CIS should too.

There will surely be more to the post-mortem of this 2008 championship, but in the meantime there’s a whole slew of folks back in St. Catharines who are reveling in Brock’s biggest athletic moment in 16 years and I, as a proud alum, admit to a couple of goosebumps of my own when seeing the players, and coach Ken Murray savouring that moment. And for any controversy and debate that led up to the tournament, the Badgers helped make those the pictures the final lasting images that basketball fans really want to see.

Well, if your last name is Larkins and your first name is a derivative of David, you’re pretty much feeling like you designed this national final.

Now, if you have the ego that is generally only held by people who come from Altona, Man., and find bigger things in Brandon, Man., then you might blow this up bigger than it is. But here’s the thing…

This is a David Larkins national final.

Alright I’m a clown, but can we all join together and celebrate the fact that we will have a new champion? Woah, is that silence I hear from the capital region? I care about two licks who wins the national title, but I’m not going to lie and say I didn’t mind seeing Carleton out of the dance. That has nothing to do with the Ravens’ players, the coaching staff, any of that. I’m just rejoicing in a new title-holder.

So I’m driving from Winnipeg (covering high school provincial final) to Brandon and basically had roughly 30 people phoning me and texting me updates from the game that might go down as one of the top 5 CIS tournament games ever. So, yeah, I’m a big fan of the fact I wasn’t anywhere near a TV at the time. Ugh.

Now, I’m taking full credit for the success of Les Berry and Steve Baur and, by that, the Acadia Axemen too. And, I went to Brock and covered the likes of Brad Rootes, Dusty Bianchin, Mike Kemp, Scott Murray in high school and Ken Murray as well. So I’m taking credit for their progress as well.

I’m obviously utterly joking.

Here’s my breakdown:

Berry went into Acadia and pretty much annihilated what was there, cleaning house to fill the place with his type of guys. Three years in, you can’t argue with his results. This is a guy who got the Brandon women’s job in 2003-04 and, without even accepting the fate a Brandon women’s team had become accustomed to, he brought them to a four-win season and gave thoughts that perhaps BU was ready to make its name known once and for all.

Now he’s gone in and made Acadia his team. This is a Les Berry-coached and recruited team. And say what you want about the man — and most of you will — the fact is he’s got his team in a national final in three years and that’s something to take note of (especially if your fans of teams like Manitoba, PEI, McGill, etc.).

But Brock and Acadia are night and day in their roads here. Berry did an exceptional job finding kids who can play right now and make an impact. Leo Saintil is perhaps Teen Wolf in human form, while Paulo Santana has battled injuries all year and yet still remained as one of those guys that the Axemen know they need to have healthy. This is a recruited team, if ever there was one.

Now, my alma mater, the Brock University. Total opposite of AU. This is one of the most home-grown teams we’ve ever seen in the national final. Rootes, Kemp, Murray, Bianchin, Rohan Steen. These are all guys who have grown up together and balled together basically since they were in day care.

And, y’know what? I think they deserve this.

Everyone can talk about Ontario getting three teams in the tournament and all three into the second round, and how much it sucks that that happened. People hate on Ontario and that’s just how it goes.

But if you’re looking for a team to cheer for today — maybe your school didn’t get in, maybe you just want to see a ball game — I’m going to suggest that you cheer for the mighty Brock Badgers. Why? Because this is a team that loaded up with local kids, a team that has always just been pretty darn good and good enough to beat you on any night, but never a juggernaut. And cheer for them because they’ve got a pretty class group of kids there, led by Rootes, the fifth-year point guard who is one of the best Canada has, but will never be the guy to tell you that.

Cheer for the fact that this group has one last run left in it. And cheer for the fact that building a program off people almost entirely from your region still matters. And, if you need more, cheer for the fact that there’s a whole slew of kids who have been working their entire university lives just to (hopefully) get this one chance.

I like Les Berry, I like Steve Baur. I wish them the best, with all sincerity. But I’m pulling for my school. Today, I’m once again a Brock Badger.

• • •

Following up a few high school notes from the province. First, the girls’ final was not entirely epic but boy it felt that way.

Brandon’s Crocus Plains beat Winnipeg’s Sisler 91-80 for the first title in the school’s history and a pretty remarkable feat for a team that, just three years ago, struggled to even win games in its own city league.

In regards to Thursday night’s post, if you thought I was lying about Debbie Yeboah and Danielle DeGagne, then you need to have seen Saturday’s final.

Yeboah, the Grade 12 5-foot-6 guard, scored 23 points after halftime, finished with 38 for the night and almost single-handedly willed her team back from a 20-point deficit that still stood in the third. Crocus went box-and-one on her — and did it well for most of the game — but any time Yeboah touched the ball there was a sense that she needed to win this game for her team, and she probably did need to. While she was willing to set up her teammates for shots (usually perimeter ones) early on, late in the game there was a sense that wasn’t going to be denied the hoop. She is an exceptional talent and you will certainly see her making plays in the CIS next season.

DeGagne, meanwhile, is not even particularly human. When Yeboah would make a play, DeGagne would step up with a spin move, a dish to a teammate, a tough shot in traffic, whatever was necessary at the time. And there was never a sense on her face that she was making that moment any bigger than any of the other ones that had preceded in the past four months.

Oh ya, she went for 41 points and 16 rebounds.

The hallmark moment for her? She crossed up Yeboah — a far from suspect defender — with a couple of through-the-legs crossovers and hesitations that earned her a free lane to the hoop. Her finger roll rimmed out but the image of Yeboah completely out of position because of DeGagne’s steps, was one that couldn’t be forgotten.

It was a completely memorable basketball game for all the right reasons.

WINNIPEG — In the River City covering the Manitoba provincial high school championship but still keeping track of the men’s nationals in Ottawa.

So a few quick notes: First, Larks picked the “upset” of the first round with Western knocking off Saint Mary’s to advance to Saturday’s semifinal.

Friday’s second semifinal — with Larks’ alma mater Brock taking on the “can we just please win one” UBC Thunderbirds — is currently underway. There’s a few different ways of following the action from Scotiabank Place, so I’m likely not telling you anything that you don’t already know.

I like this as a first-round game, by the way. And it, along with the Western win, goes to show that this year’s top seeds (save for Carleton) are far from untouchable. Not like they ever are, really, but I don’t think you’re looking at any of the first-round games and thinking you’d be shocked to see the quote-unquote underdog coming out with a win.

But that certainly holds true for Brock. The Badgers, on one hand, are told they’re going to be playing the No. 2 team in the tournament but also that that team is one that hasn’t won a game at nationals this century. No way Brock comes into this feeling like its up against the world.

And same for Western. The Mustangs caught a hot streak after the Christmas break but have really hit a stride in the post-season and obviously are playing confident ball. Western spread out its offence on Friday with five players scoring in double figures and shook off a poor shooting performance (27-for-71/38 per cent) to advance to tomorrow’s semifinal.

I wasn’t a fan of Saint Mary’s being in the No. 3 spot and I’m not the least bit stunned that the Huskies are gone. I fully understand the balance the selection committee attempts to maintain, but no one mistook the Huskies for a top-three team. SMU got hot, won a few nailbiter games and vaulted into the top of the seedings. It’s not their fault they didn’t belong there. (Again, I’m going to have to put an embargo on any “they won the games that mattered” talk right now. I’m aware. Because they won their tournament didn’t suddenly make them one of the nation’s elite.)

Currently in the Brock-UBC semifinal, the Badgers have slipped into a 2-3 zone, which I’d think would be the right call. UBC has never played in this arena, and the spacious confines (much more spacious than the Halifax Metro Centre) obviously is going to play with team’s depth perception. I wouldn’t stay locked in that zone — that may lead to complacency on defence — but giving UBC the perimeter isn’t a bad idea. The T-Birds don’t have a ton of guys who are going to kill you from back there anyway, but especially when adapting to this big, new environment it’s wise to say “OK, prove you can hit it first.”

* * *

Just a quick note from the provincials in Winnipeg. Anyone that follows women’s basketball in the CIS should be keeping a few names in their heads for next season and beyond.

Sisler’s Debbie Yeboah will graduate this year and become an immediate impact player at the next level. Her brother Kevin played briefly with the Winnipeg Wesmen. Debbie, meanwhile, has what many call — fairly or not — “a guy’s game.” I’m not usually one to make that kind of comment, but it’s fun to watch her play. She’s got a tremendous hesitation, her first-step quickness is beyond anyone else in this province and she can pull up and knock down shots too.

Everyone in Brandon who follows basketball is familiar with the name DeGagne and more and more people should be starting to hear Crocus Plains’ Danielle DeGagne’s name in the next year-plus. A Grade 11 point guard with good size, DeGagne is the daughter of longtime CIS referee Rick DeGagne but don’t hold that against her (that’s a joke, relax). Anyway, Danielle is eye-popping and more than one coach at Thursday’s semifinal had an ooh-ahh reaction to some of the things she does. Her vision is exceptional and that’s maybe the last thing you notice on her. I commented to someone at Thursday’s game that it really said a lot about her that, when the team needed steadying, you would look to a Grade 11 to get the ball to just because you know it’s safe there. DeGagne has tremendous athletic ability — she could probably go post-secondary in three sports — and her numbers are gross: She averaged a triple-double over the course of three games at a tournament earlier this season and averaged 17.8 points, 10 rebounds and six assists per game for the year. The one knock is her outside game but, still with a year of high school left, she’s got time to add that. She’ll have to be able to shoot the ball at the next level, but no one is doubting her ability to become a force in university. Now, if we can just figure out where she’s going to go.

And finally, also from Brandon Crocus Plains, is Grade 9 forward Tia Coulter — also the daughter of a ref (Grant Coulter) — who is getting a ton of attention mostly because of her youth and the fact she’s in the starting lineup of the province’s No. 1-ranked team. I’m not going to knock a 14-year-old, and there’s very little not to like here. She’s got size, athleticism and three years left of high school after this. She went for 18 points and 15 rebounds in the semifinal and, while not every game is that gaudy for her, everyone is taking notice. You have to remind yourself frequently that she’s only in Grade 9. Pops has been said to be one of the best, if not the best, all-around athletes ever in Brandon and you can see the pedigree in Tia.

One brief note on the boys’ side because a couple of months ago I already dealt with some of the best players in the province the only name I’ll add in the mix is Justin Roper, the Oak Park point guard. Justin is joining his brother Ryan in heading to the Cape Breton Capers next season. Justin has a pretty solid all-around game and, at this level, can get to the hoop regularly. He won’t dominate at the next level, at least right away, but he’s got the style of game that could make him one of those “watch him in his third year” kind of guys. Ryan, who took a year off after his three years at Winnipeg, verballed to Cape and Justin soon followed. It will be interesting to see how they fit in with Jim Charters‘ crew on the coast.

An interview with Arash Madani of The Score television network; a preview of this weekend’s CIS men’s national championship; a preview of the first ever National Eff You CIS Invitational Tournament powered by TheScrumBrandon.com; and an episode of Blindside featuring thoughts on TMZ, autobiographies, man laws, and the best/worst athlete cameos of all-time. Plus, Swatter and Larks offer you - the listener - a chance to have your voice heard (literally)!

 

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You know, once upon a time, the NIT was the bigger deal in American college basketball. It once held that getting an invite to the National Invitational Tournament held more juice for coaches and teams than going to the NCAA’s.

And it got us at The Scrum thinking: What if Canada had an NIT?

And we thought a bit more, and we looked at this year’s CIS nationals field and thought: Wouldn’t this year’s NIT be infinitely more riveting than the CIS? What if we, in a perfect world, could shake our fists at the CIS and trump them by building a 16-team bracket, going bigger and better than the piddly eight-team format of the CIS?

And like Barack Obama, we said: YES WE CAN!

So Swatter and Larks sat down over the MSN and mulled this issue for a good eight minutes before coming up with a field of 16 that, when paired against the CIS tournament, looks to be much more enticing viewing.

We didn’t get bogged down with policies, we didn’t set hard-and-fast rules and we didn’t act like our jobs depended on the seeding. We just went with our guts and avoided conference-on-conference first-round match-ups. The biggest challenge, however, was finding a name for this big gong show that is now threatening to be the biggest event of spring in Canada. Yes, it’s that big.

So we mulled. Again, this took about four minutes.

And in the end we came up with a name that, we believe, best reflects the likely emotions from a number of the teams that have been relegated to The Little Dance. We arrived at:

“The National Eff You CIS Invitational Tournament powered by TheScrumBrandon.com”

We all know you wanted to be in the big show, but it doesn’t always work that way. That’s why ours is an invitational. We want all 16 of you to know you’re wanted in this tournament. One wild card in the CIS? Screw that, you’re ALL wild cards in our minds. And you can all band together and say a collective eff you to the organization that didn’t find you worthy of Ottawa. And you know what else? No ‘host’ berths here, people. You get into the NEYCIT powered by TheScrumBrandon.com on your own merits, not because your school ponied up more money than the last guys.

The one last challenge was finding a venue for the tournament. Ideally you want a sexy locale, a place that draws thousands — if not for the basketball, then for the sights, sounds and night life that surround it. You need a neutral site because, again, we’re not into giving home-court advantage away. So the natural selection, of course, was….

Sudbury, Ontario.

Located in beautiful northeastern Ontario, Greater Sudbury is home to the largest integrated mining complex in the world and of course, that huge honkin’ nickel. The site of Laurentian University, Sudbury will serve all your basketball needs and we at The Scrum get the satisfaction of knowing we’re giving the fans there a chance to actually watch significant basketball games happen in late winter for the first time in this century.

And so without further adieu, we unveil the seedings for the The National Eff You CIS Invitational Tournament powered by TheScrumBrandon.com to be played at the glorious Ben F. Avery Physical Education Centre.

1. Brandon Bobcats
2. Ottawa Gee-Gees
3. Calgary Dinos
4. Toronto Varsity Blues
5. Windsor Lancers
6. St. Francis Xavier X-Men
7. Dalhousie Tigers
8. Concordia Stingers
9. Cape Breton Capers
10. Guelph Gryphons
11. Victoria Vikes
12. Saskatchewan Huskies
13. Simon Fraser Clan
14. Queen’s Golden Gaels
15. UQAM Citadins
16. McGill Redmen

Tune in to this week’s podcast as we break down and discuss our field of 16. Also watch for a post later this week where we pick all our winners.

Larkins has been slowed — but not completely halted — by a busy weekend of actually doing the job he’s paid for and an illness that is a cross between rubella and the Bubonic Plague. But don’t worry, good ol’ Black Death ain’t enough to keep me from bringing you loyal readers some ill-informed, hastily put together opinions on the approaching nationals. It’s the least I could do.

First off, the wild card decision. Acadia gets the one at-large berth into nationals and puts to rest the debate over what team was more deserving. In the end, (as has been said in this space before) it was a two-horse race between the Axemen and the Bobcats and Acadia was the consensus pick.

Before dealing with these two, it’s apt to take this time to give thanks for the fact that Acadia’s selection means the official end to all the ludicrous and utterly annoying jabber that somehow Toronto deserved to be the wild card. Listen, Toronto had a nice season and did some noteworthy things, and OUA East coach of the year Mike Katz is deserving of credit for getting what he did out of his team, but the bottom line is you can not, in any logical way that requires common sense, come to the table and suggest that a team that is — at best — the fifth team in the Ontario conference somehow deserves to leapfrog not only the two teams that were still standing in the OUA playoffs, but also the second-place AUS team and the third-place Canada West team. This has been, to some, a popular argument over the past week or so and I, for one, am rejoicing that we don’t have to hear about it anymore. Presumably.

Tough on the Brandon Bobcats to have to watch their season end the way it did and, as I wrote in today’s Brandon Sun, no one wanted to see the ‘Cats fifth-year seniors go out like this. Yul Michel politely declined to speak to the media afterwards (which was understood), Adam Hartman said he couldn’t find any words to say to his teammates and that he felt sick to his stomach, and even the usually gregarious and outspoken Yuri Whyms struggled to come to terms with a career that ended with a phone call.

And as difficult as it is for these players to swallow, the fact is the numbers simply added up better for the Axemen and when Acadia dropped the AUS final to Saint Mary’s on Sunday afternoon, most everyone knew the writing was on the wall.

The reality is that BU built up a strong record against teams with sub-.500 records and 15 of their 20 wins in the regular season were against teams with said record. When you factor in that the overall record also shows a 6-7 mark against teams with a better than .500 record, including a Christmas loss to Acadia, then you quickly see that BU’s chances were slim to beat out the Axemen, who were 8-2 against the plus-.500 teams. We’re not ignoring the fact that Brandon got wins off UBC (in Vancouver) and twice beat Calgary, including once on the road, but there were seemingly just two many black marks against the Bobcats this time around.

And that is unfortunate, because if you look at this field it has to shape up as one of the, on paper, weakest fields we’ve seen at nationals. Now, before you get on the “win to get in” bandwagon and tell me that the teams that are there deserve to be there, I’m fully aware of the fact that the teams that are in Ottawa are there because they took care of business. Let’s please not have any emails pointing out that very obvious fact.

Yet we have one team (Western) that didn’t taste the top 10 this season and had a regular season record of two games above .500; another team that hasn’t been in the top 10 in 2008 (SMU); a team that went 3-4 in the playoffs including getting swept in its divisional final (Alberta); and a team from the weakest conference in the land (Laval), whose lone “good win” came against Brock in October. But as I said on a few occasions on Sunday to people interested in the tournament: It’s not who wins the most games, but who wins the right games. Never was this more evident than this year.

Now, while the argument can be made that there’s level representation from the four conferences (two CanWest, three Ontario, one Quebec, two AUS), that doesn’t necessarily mean we’ve got a competitive balance from one to eight. I also think it’s the Western Mustangs who get the best draw in the first round.

Think about it: • You’re an Ontario team, so you’re likely pulling some fans into the building. • Now it’s SMU that has to travel and play in an unfamiliar building (something the rest of the country has learned about the past 24 years). • And you’re getting a team that is famous for catching fire in their home-away-from-home building of the Halifax Metro Centre. Do you believe that this team, which shot 30 per cent from three — one of the absolute worst rates in the country — is catching fire in a completely foreign gym?

Western is happy, trust me. And Acadia too. The Axemen get Laval despite having to take the back door into the tournament. The wild card berth could’ve netted you a No. 8 seed. Instead Acadia gets a team that is far from battle-tested against the rest of the country’s elite.

And Brandon will watch it all on TV. Proof once again that, at this time of year, when you’re looking to make reservations for nationals, you don’t ask someone else to hold your tickets.

An interview with Brandon women’s basketball coach Jaime Hickson (11:00); a preview of the women’s Final Eight tournament; an in-depth look at TheScrumBrandon.com curse (31:45); a wildcard debate (34:50); and an episode of Blindside (46:19) featuring thoughts on Saved By The Bell, sleet, Gary Bettman, Pros vs. Joes, and hairless cats. Plus, Larkins ponders a future in the hip hop industry.

 

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Remember when I told you not to believe anything of what you’re about to read? Turns out I was right. Time to adjust a few things:

The long-held misconception, and even I fell victim to it and should have known better, is that conference winners earn a top-five seed. And even as I sat there and read the policies of the CIS on seeding, and saw it in black and white, I still placed Laval in a top-five spot even though they’re not necessarily privy to that.

iii) Without affecting the integrity of the championship, efforts should be made where possible to have two Sport Conference Champions in each of the two brackets.

Now, if you think of the tournament as a bracket rather than a ranking, then you can see where Laval could be placed lower in the seeding and still adhere to this rule.

I’m not going to go back into a whole breakdown of every scenario again, but let’s just throw out a hypothetical ranking here and vibe off that:

1. Carleton
2. Acadia (AUS champs)
3. UBC
4. Brandon (wild card)
5. Laval
6. Ottawa/Brock (third OUA)
7. Western
8. Alberta

Laval could conceivably drop into the No. 8 slot given the fact the Rouge et Or have played in the weakest conference in the country and have dipped into the rankings just once all season. But I think that’s still an unfair spot to slot a conference champion, even if it is in the Q. Call me sensitive.

Now, in this scenario we’ve got conference champions on both sides of the bracket, we’ve avoided placing conference teams against each other and, all in all, it looks fair. The only thing that people will perhaps gripe with (and it’s a fair beef) is that the wild card team, if it’s Brandon, has been placed at 4 while Alberta, which beat Brandon three times and earned silver in the conference, gets the short end of the stick and goes to 8. Again, this may very well be a spot where you flip Alberta and Laval, assuming the committee is wont to place a conference champ that low. If ever there was an argument for a conference winner being seeded that low it’s this year with the Q.

Thanks to Ken Murray at Brock, who clarified a couple of things to me in terms of regulations for seeding. This, again, is just my opinion on how it might (MIGHT) shake down. Heaven knows nothing will be clear until Sunday evening.

Too much to talk about today, so no intro here. Let’s just say this is one attempt at weeding through a very cluttered nationals picture. Two things are really affecting where teams go and that is the OUA third-place game this weekend that will determine the third and final OUA bid into nationals; and the AUS tournament that will determine who gets the wild card: Brandon or Acadia. With that said, here’s one man’s thoughts. Keep in mind this is a work in progress and also keep in mind we’re assuming Laval as the champion of the Q:

SCENARIO 1: Ottawa wins, Acadia wins AUS

With the Axemen winning the AUS, the wild card goes to Brandon and Ottawa comes in as the No. 3 Ontario team.

A couple of things to consider from here on out: The committee will slot conference champions in the top five seeds and will go to great pains to avoid an intra-conference first-round match-up. Meaning, Ottawa won’t be slotted in the 8 to face the top-seed Carleton (the OUA East rivals). So how about this?

1. Carleton
2. Acadia
3. UBC
4. Laval
5. Western
6. Ottawa
7. Alberta
8. Brandon

In this set-up you avoid any intra-conference battles, you get your conference winners all in the top five and, don’t look now, but you get a rematch of last year’s national final in the first round. Now, you could make an argument that the committee would like to avoid a Carleton/Brandon first-round, but I don’t buy it. Also, you could debate that the No. 2 out of Canada West shouldn’t be placed behind the No. 3 from Ontario, but putting Alberta at 6 isn’t an option with UBC at the 3. You could also put Alberta in the 8, with Brandon at the 7 given the fact that Brandon did have the better national standing, etc., all year. But, again, it’s a tough sell to suggest that Alberta, which beat BU three times this season and finished higher at the conference final four, gets a much worse draw than the Bobcats. Alberta at 5 and Western at 6 could also work.

SCENARIO 2: Brock wins, Acadia wins AUS

This probably doesn’t affect things significantly more than the Ottawa scenario, but it could create a wrinkle or two.

1. Carleton
2. Acadia
3. Laval
4. UBC
5. Western
6. Alberta
7. Brandon
8. Brock

The real sticking point here is the No. 3 seed. Truthfully UBC deserves it over the likes of Laval and Western, but where you slot the T-Birds has a snowball effect later on down. So, just for the sake of discussion, let’s move UBC into the 4 (even though I don’t believe they belong there). Now that gives you the flexibility of flipping Brandon and Alberta in the 6 and 7 slots and then Brock, which has hovered in the 7-Unranked area all season, gets the Ravens in the first round (you can pit OUA West against East). If you keep UBC in the 3, then you have to move Western down to the 6 and Alberta up to 5. My question mark here is whether or not Western counts as a conference champion, and thus, automatically earning a top-five spot. My thought is no.

This second set-up is more for just stirring things up. I still think that you’d revert back to something closer to the first scenario, regardless if Brock or Ottawa wins the third OUA berth.

SCENARIO 3: Acadia loses AUS, Ottawa wins

This and the following scenario is based on the theory that the Axemen win the wild card if it’s between them and Brandon.

1. Carleton
2. UBC
3. AUS Champions
4. Laval
5. Alberta
6. Western
7. Ottawa
8. Acadia

Here we’ve assumed Western is not privileged to a top-five spot and given the Canada West runners-up, the Golden Bears, the No. 5 hole. The AUS champions are in a spot where they could get either 3 or 4 depending on who they are. If it’s Cape Breton, a team that spent the past eight weeks in the top 10, then you can justify — I think — moving the Capers into that 3 spot. If it’s St. Francis Xavier, however, it’s more of a sell job to convince people they deserve anything higher than a 4 when they haven’t seen the rankings yet this season. Also, despite being No. 2 currently, the Axemen drop into the 8 as a wild card, thus avoiding the Ottawa-Carleton match-up.

SCENARIO 4: Acadia loses AUS, Brock wins

1. Carleton
2. UBC
3. AUS Champions
4. Laval
5. Alberta
6. Western
7. Acadia
8. Brock

This one stands to be a little more straightforward. We’ve just flip-flopped Acadia and Brock and essentially said that the wild card is worth more than the No. 3 in the OUA when that wild card is being held by a team that has been in the top four since November.

• • • • •

Again, this is all just shooting the bull right now, all off the top of my head. There is most certainly minor tinkering that can be applied here, so feel free to shed your thoughts and email thescrumbrandon@gmail.com.

The Brandon Bobcats are back in the Wheat City today without a clue if they should even bother practising this week.

The Bobcats win over the Calgary Dinos in the Canada West bronze medal game on Saturday was a big step towards getting back to nationals, but it might not have been big enough, and now the Bobcats will wait in limbo to see if they’ll get that coveted at-large bid into Ottawa next week.

So let’s break down the bid for the wild card:

• On various blogs, message boards and the like, there has been a lot of debate over what teams will be thrown in the mix as if to offer up discussion. But let’s quash that discussion right now: The only teams that have a shot at the wild card are Brandon and Acadia. So drop Toronto, Windsor and the fourth Ontario team out of the equation. Take the second-place Quebec team and tell them thanks but no thanks and you silver-medallists in the AUS — whoever you may be if you’re not the Axemen — sorry but you’re done too.

In reality, the debate between AU and BU isn’t as close as you might think it. While Brandon’s RPI (power index) is higher than Acadia’s, the Axemen have a better win percentage and the Bobcats have a middling 6-7 mark against teams with a record of .500 or better, whereas Acadia is 7-4 against the same quality of opponents. Also, as per the CIS’ at-large selection policy, the Bobcats semifinal exit to a team that didn’t end up winning the conference won’t be looked highly upon either. Add in that Acadia is currently ranked higher than Brandon and also holds a win in the one meeting the two teams had this season (in December at the Wesmen Classic) and you have to figure the Axemen are a lock should they not win the AUS title next weekend.

You can read the CIS procedures for selecting the at-large berth by downloading the .pdf file here.

• I was disappointed in the crowds in Calgary only because I had been told earlier in the week that the school had already sold out tickets to the event only to watch and see a lot of empty seats. Now, I’m not bashing Calgary here at all. Heaven knows a sellout in Canada is the equivalent of successfully having all the children of the world join hands and sing in the spirit of harmony and peace (a la Steve Martin’s Holiday Wish). It just felt, through watching the webcasts, as if the building wasn’t as full as perhaps it was expected to me. Correct me if I’m wrong.

• I thought it was a well done effort by the U of C’s NUTV crew to put on the four games successfully with multiple cameras, and a feel that it was a full-fledged broadcast crew bringing the game. One gripe? The announcing was, in a word, painful. It’s a simple process to go and ask a coach before the game to make sure you have pronunciations of players and it’s also ill-advised to constantly make jokes on air that you and your buddies think are funny but no one else does. Trust me, I’m the least funny person I know. It’s not going to put you in high favour when you’re someone who goes out and slams a group of volunteers, but let’s put it this way: By having that aspect of the broadcast come off as unprofessional and (truly) like a joke, it slighted the entire production, which was actually quite good. A number of viewers took shots at NUTV as a whole even though it was just one aspect and, in the end, that’s unfortunate because NUTV’s effort was worthy of an applause save for that.

• I’m still trying to figure out how Calgary threw away their chance to go to nationals. I mean, look at the numbers, especially from Saturday’s loss to Brandon. Seriously LOOK at these. … Henry Bekkering still goes for 23 and 8 despite playing through foul trouble all game long. … Brandon fouls out its starting post, his back-up, and HIS back-up too, PLUS the guy (Eric Holm) who comes in off the bench when the Bobcats need to go small-ball. … The Dinos shot 48 free throws to 31 for Brandon.

If you’re a member of the Dinos and you were presented these facts before the game and were told that this was going to happen, is there any way in the world you would think you were going to lose that game?

Of course, in that scenario we’ve cleverly left out the fact that you’re going to get out-rebounded 55-39, shoot 28.8 per cent from the field in your own gym and have one of your best players (Ross Bekkering) not make a FG and go 0-for-6.

And those last two facts are the most alarming: How Calgary managed, on its own floor, to shoot just 30 per cent for the weekend (they were 22-for-68 in Friday’s loss to UBC) is absolutely mind-blowing to me. Come to think of it, the first fact is alarming to me too: They were drastically out-rebounded in both losses. A team that has great size and athleticism among its bigs and the Dinos were out-boarded 102-71 for the weekend.

Those are the facts in the cold light of day for Calgary. No one said post-mortems were glamorous.

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Switching our focus elsewhere, and let’s check out the OUA where the Western Mustangs are trying to remind us all that there still exists a men’s basketball team in London, Ont. Who knew?

Well, don’t look now but the Mustangs — they of the 12-10 record and fourth place in the OUA West — are relevant again after winning the West and earning one of two auto berths out of Ontario. They might be the Monmouth or Western Kentucky of the nationals, the team with the muddy record that … gets bounced in the first round.

But we’ve seen it before: No first-round game is a lock and the Mustangs are playing well at the right time of year. That said, I’m not anxious to jump on the bandwagon of a team that has losses to Ryerson and Laurentian in the same calendar year.

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In Quebec, Concordia beat out UQAM in the semifinal and Laval’s through after a win over McGill. The Rouge et Or win the final by 15.

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In the AUS, the Axemen go in as the favourite but they could pull a semifinal game against Saint Mary’s, a match-up the Axemen can’t be gleeful to see. The Huskies have defeated Acadia twice this year and are always tough in the Metro Centre, and maybe more so this year considering this will be the only tournament the faithful in Halifax will have to to cheer. Meanwhile, Cape Breton has the unenviable task of going three games in three days to try to earn the AUS bid, something Acadia did last year on the way to the title.

And there’s St. FX just kind of hanging out. The X-Men, who had won six of the previous seven AUS titles before Acadia won last season, are perhaps happily playing the role of underdog this season. They earn a first-round bye and should face Cape Breton in the semis, assuming the Capers do what they’re supposed to do and beat Dalhousie in the first round.