Carleton-Saskatchewan in a historic rematch | Unibball Dispatch, Year 2
For the first time in 3 decades, the same two teams are battling for the Bronze Baby, the emblem of Canadian women's university b-ball supremacy.
Right off the hop, Carleton and Saskatchewan got after it as though they were destined to meet again.
For the first time since 1993, the national championship game in Canadian university women’s basketball is a rematch, or sequel. Both the Ravens and Huskies standard-bearer stars — such as Tatyanna Burke, Dorcas Buisa, Jacqueline Urban and Teresa Donato in Carleton’s black and red; national player-of-the-year Gage Grassick and the likes of Andrea Dodig, Téa DeMong, and Courtney Primeau in Huskie green — delivered in decisive semifinal wins out in Vancouver.
If you believe that most battles are won before they even begin, there is your proof.
Two-time defending champion Carleton won by three points in the 2024 final, and the primary hope here is these two teams go to the wire again. As best as I can tell (merci beaucoup, usportshoops.ca), the last championship-game rematch was in 1993, when the Winnipeg Wesmen turned the tables on the Victoria Vikings. Can Saskatchewan draw any omens from that? Should they? Omens are not as valuable as the chip on the shoulder.
The Calgary-Victoria men’s final (see recap) has a 4 p.m. ET/1 p.m. PT tip-off on Sunday. The women’s final goes at 7 ET/4 PT. I plan to write posts on each final.
The scores!
(3) Carleton Ravens 84, (2) Ottawa Gee-Gees 60
Dorcas Buisas and Tatyanna Burke, the latter a fifth-year looking for a final victory lap, drew Ottawa into turnover after turnover — the Gee-Gees finished the opening quarter with 11 of ’em and seven points. The Ravens’ other core players generally settled in, with eight players scoring six or more points. Burke had 16 points and nine rebounds on 8-of-11 shooting, and was one of three Velcro-taloned Ravens who nicked three steals.
The result gives Carleton an 8-4 record against Ottawa since the respective coaches, Dani Sinclair and the Gee-Gees’ Rose-Anne Joly, débuted in 2021-22.
(1) Saskatchewan Huskies 85, (4) UBC Thunderbirds 63
All eight members of Saskatchewan’s rotation scored their first bucket in the first 14½ minutes, and guard Andrea Dodig, the only Huskie with a national title ring, had a career-best 19 points. So, yeah, any hope of a close-ish game was ethered quickly, with the Huskies picking the Thunderbirds’ bones clean with their spacing and sharing, opting to be an ensemble instead of The Gage Grassick Show. Forward Ella Murphy Wiebe joined the parade of five double-digit scorers by hooping 15 with a game-leading nine rebounds.
The Lisa Thomaidis-coached Huskies are 14-1 against UBC over the last decade (start of the ’15-16 season), with 11 of the wins coming by double digits.
The mild take
The universal sports law is that once a team wins it all once, it is an inevitability they will do so again. Carleton has won two titles in a row and three of the last six; Saskatchewan has two of the last eight. Some events had to happen to get them on opposite sides of the draw. Once it was set, you just sensed a high probability they would run into each other.
Of course, nine Carleton players know what it is like to win a championship game. Save for one player, the Huskies’ nucleus only has the field notes from their elders who won in 2016 and ’20.
The Ravens were seemingly everywhere defensively, and Saskatchewan certainly has not seen anything like that.
Narrative notes
Speaking of, Gage Grassick scored 30 points against Carleton in the 2024 final, which the Ravens pulled out 70-67. No other Huskie who will suit up on Sunday had more than seven.
All-time, Saskatchewan is 2-3 in national finals, and Carleton is 3-0. All of Saskatchewan’s losses have been to OUA teams — the Ravens in 2018 and ’24, and Windsor in 2011 at the beginning of its five-season reign.
Carleton’s top scorer comes off the bench. Guard Teresa Donato, a hometown Ottawa, hooped a game-high 17 points (including 4-of-6 from deep), after putting up 20 in the quarterfinal.
It is probably cold comfort for Ottawa that they had an even 50 percent eFG%1 in their first national semifinal with their current coach. As noted, their problem was getting shots up at all against the defensive hectoring of Buisa, Burke, all-star forward Jacqueline Urban and wing Kyana-Jade Poulin… the final tally was 24 turnovers.
Nothing is secret between Carleton and Saskatchewan. But Sinclair has been giving more run to inside defender Abany Deng, who is a long-armed 6-foot-3 rookie centre. One big blocked shot can keep the emotional fuse lit.
You can wonder if Carleton played a long game last week to get a less daunting first-round matchup. They beat Ottawa cleanly and decisvely, of course, but there should be coverage of how the butterfly effect with playoff upsets in other conferences might have stung both Gee-Gees teams. However, circumstances play a bigger part in success than anyone likes to acknowledge.
Final 8 neophyte Bishop’s upset tournament regulars Laval in the Québec conference final. So, due to the “Acadia rule” that guarantees a top-6 seeding to conference winners, 3-seed Carleton played a team that finished 15-14, while 2-seed Ottawa played a team that finished 26-5. Ottawa needed overtime to outlast Laval, and Carleton got an easy run.
Ottawa-Laval might have been the semifinal if the Rouge et Or had won their auto-berth game. Following that thread, Carleton would have probably dropped to the 4v5 quarterfinal, which means facing Saskatchewan in the semifinal.
The vanquishees: Ottawa and UBC
Gee-Gees learn a lesson
Ottawa started much, much too late against Carleton’s collapsing defence, plain and simple. When that happens, the mind goes to the age-old question about the mental vs. the mechanical, although that is unanswerable when viewing from a distance.
A simple basketball explanation for what happened is that Carleton increased the pace to keep Ottawa from setting up its 1-2-2 zone defence. And, of course, that defence is premised on the opponent bricking threes, so maybe it doesn’t work in a national semifinal. A week after swishing 8-of-34 triple tries in their home gym, Carleton made 11-of-30 in an arena setting — because, Carleton.
These Gee-Gees do get the best of the Ravens on occasion. It just has not happened at the nationals. You don’t need a lot of stats after a 24-point decision, but besides the turnovers, one that stands out is Carleton had 20 assists and Ottawa had only seven — and five were from Natsuki Szczokin. That scans as a team not having a sense of where the ball is supposed to go when its gets such-and-such a look.
The bronze-medal game is the last go-’round for several players, including Szczokin. She had a better shooting night against Carleton than against Laval two days prior.
The Thunderbirds earn some wings
Ignore the score and try to assess their compete, in noun form. That seemed like the right tack for watching how the T-Birds asserted themselves against the green wall known as Saskatchewan, who they have not defeated since 2018-19. Nuance is the essence of compassion and good casual-diehard constructive criticism.
Suffice to say, the way 5-foot-11 guard Olivia Weekes kept on after injuring a wrist and having her nose bloodied was a good visual that UBC completed an important exposure.
Further notations were made when the Kathy Shields Award (national rookie of the year) honoree, Keira Daly, drove aggressively against Saskatchewan’s quick-collapsing defence. Or when a second-year reserve, Maddie Billings, put some English on a pinpoint pass to Sofia Bergman for a layup and squared up a corner three later in the contest.
Then there was the other half of the sister act, rookie guard Nicole Daly, infusing energy into the effort to jam Saskatchewan’s offensive movement. At one point, the latter Daly was the on-ball defender against Grassick and routed her right into a block from Jessica Clarke.
That projected confidence whilst facing a team that just executes on a higher level. Overall, playing for a medal on Championship Sunday makes this a successful nationals for UBC. Clarke is one of two Thunderbirds who is aging out. But five of their top six scorers can come back, including first look Mona Berlitz, who scored 15 points tonight.
If UBC ends up winning the bronze medal game, they would have 50 wins in their first two seasons under Ormond. At worst, Ormond will have a 49-14 record (.714 win pct.). That is commendable, considering COVID-era disruption and two coaching changes.
The Big Six
A half-dozen hoopsters who came up clutch, outside of the player of the game winners:
Andrea Dodig, guard, Saskatchewan
One of the more hard-nosed Huskies, who has overcome an ACL injury in 2022-23 and a broken wrist to keep her spot in the rotation, was omnipresent on the floor. Dodig scored six of Sask’s first 12 points; she also created consecutive catch-and-shoot threes for Grassick and rookie forward Olivia Harm that stretched the lead out to 14 points by the game’s eight-minute mark.
Dorcas Buisas, guard, Carleton
Buisas, as almost always, was a big part of the high press Carleton set up that sent Ottawa down the path to losing the ball. She had a game-high six assists and joint-high three steals.
Jacqueline Urban, forward, Carleton
Urban was steady and certain from the 4-spot, chipping in 12 points and eight rebounds in Carleton’s winning effort. The Gee-Gees’ woman of the hour from the quarterfinal, forward Emily Payne, was held to five points, and Urban had something to do with that.
Courtney Primeau, forward, Saskatchewan
I am not on-site, so no one will ask me, but Primeau is probably closing in on a tournament all-star nod. One of six hometown Huskies from Saskatoon, Primeau outproduced the taller Clarke, notching 11 points and six rebounds. She made 5-of-6 shots, even though her left shoulder is heavily bandaged.
Bailey Russell, guard, Ottawa
The Gee-Gees did pare Carleton’s lead to 12 points late in the third quarter before a classic Burke strong take confirmed who owned this night. Bailey was part of that run, scoring 11 points on 3-of-4 from three-point range.
Sara Toneguzzi, guard, UBC
The undersized guard (listed at 5-foot-6) was the most spirited and efficient attacker as UBC struggled to shoot well for the second game in a row. Toneguzzi, of Oakville, Ont. — same hometown as 2024 tournament MVP Kali Porcnic! — hooped 11 points on 4-of-8 shooting.
Note
All records and statistics are sourced from usporthoops.ca by Martin Timmerman.
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March 15-16, 2025
Hamilton, Ont. : on the traditional territories of the Erie, Neutral, Huron-Wendat, Haudenosaunee, and Mississaugas.
Effective field-goal percentage is half of a team’s total points from the floor divided by shots. Ottawa was 23-of-53 from the field with seven three-pointers, or 26.5-of-53.