The Saskempire Strikes Back, With Gage Against The Machine | Uniball Dispatch, Year 2
Riding the national player of the year, Gage Grassick, the Saskatchewan Huskies took back the Bronze Baby from the Carleton Ravens with a near-perfect game.
Thirty points from Gage Grassick was not enough for the Saskatchewan Huskies at this time last season when they lost against the Carleton Ravens in the Canadian final. So she just scored 35 with seven assists and seven rebounds this time, leading to a takedown of the two-time champions.
It is the first time any Carleton team, female or male, has lost in the national final. Here are observations and laurels from the last game of the season in the sport known as Unibball.
Route 85, Saskatchewan
At first, it was notable, then it felt inevitable. Whenever the score tightened, Gage Grassick would seemingly either stick another three-point dagger or swing the ball to an open Saskatchewan Huskies teammate, who would inevitably score.
By the end, university hoops’ Prairie powerhouse had found a new frontier offensively against Carleton, rolling away with an 85-66 win. Who does that to the Ravens?
Well, prior to Sunday, no one.
No U Sports opponent had broken 80 points against Carleton in 140 games, going back to the pre-COVID season before Dani Sinclair took over as a coach.1 The Huskies could have had sole possession of the mark for most points any team has tallied against the Ravens since the dawn of Canada’s FIBA rules era began in 2007.2 But coach Lisa Thomaidis, ever respectful of an opponent and fellow McMaster Marauders alumna Sinclair, called for “no shot” on her team’s last possession.
Sharing the semi-official mark is symbolic. Grassick was not forcing it or pressing, as her 35 was complemented by 13 points from forward Téa DeMong and 12 from graduating guard Andrea Dodig.
All in all, it was a masterclass from a team accustomed to playing for the Bronze Baby, the talisman symbolic of the national title. Grassick, DeMong, and leading rebounder Courtney Primeau were all in Saskatchewan’s 2020 recruiting class during the COVID-19. Imagine joining a national championship team and then spending a whole year without games, wondering when they were going to play the ball they’d visualized playing throughout their formative years — and get a chance to win a championship of their own.
There was a hint it was coming in the first quarter. Case in point: Grassick fed Dodig for a straight-on three that extended the lead to 20-14. This feels different from a Carleton perspective.
In the second, at the first inkling of a patented Carleton charge, with the lead down to five. Grassick made the first of her seven three-pointers, then, after Carleton’s second-team all-Canadian Jacqueline Urban was a couple inches off to the right on a good look, tripled again to open a nine-point lead. Two makes around a tough miss was a microcosm moment.
And it just went on like that. Only the women and male allies in the arena know what tipped the scales, but the Huskies were just on, with their effective field-goal percentage (eFG%) touching 60 percent in the first three quarters before levelling at a still-gaudy 56.9. It was instructional video-worthy. This is how you’d want to introduce your daughter, or niece, to this great game.
The pushback never quite came from Carleton. The Ravens normally know they will get enough defensive stops and offensive rebounds to generate energy and flow on offence, where they just have to be tenacious, and not perfect.
As the Huskies kept rolling, though, Carleton might have uncharacteristically trended toward perfectionism being the enemy of good. They crumbled to a 38.2 eFG% with only 10 assists off 22 baskets.
Talk about a sub-optimal finish for fifth-year guard Tatyanna Burke and other graduating players, but still, two golds and one silver at the Final 8 and two OUA Critelli Cup championships in three seasons is good validation of their play over the last three years.
It was a 14-point game at halftime. Grassick saw to it there would be no comeback. In the first minute of the third quarter, she drove into the key and slung a lefthanded pass to DeMong for a rainmaking triple from the right wing — hey, they need the rain out in Vancouver.
Minutes later, she hit two threes in 37 seconds, for an 18-point cushion. The first was off a give-and-go baseline inbound play with DeMong where Carleton was completely off-guard.
For those keeping track, that pulls Saskatchewan is level with Carleton at 3-3 in national titles over the last nine seasons. They might well do it again before terribly long.
On the Carleton side of the ledger, they are still Carleton, with a 96-11 record across the last three seasons. Burke and Teresa Donato, who dropped in 24 points on Sunday and 60 across three Final 8 games, were named tournament all-stars. Fourth-year wing Kyana-Jade Poulin added 14, and Urban was one board off a double-double, scoring 11 and getting nine rebounds.
Earlier on Sunday, Victoria defeated Calgary 82-53 to win the men’s title. Sven Maillet of Moncton, N.B., earned MVP.
Victoria crowns Calgary for first title this century | Unibball Dispatch, Year 2
For the first time since 1997, the Victoria Vikes are Canadian university men’s basketball champions. It was rather anticlimactic.
Gee-Gees cop the bronze
Surely fighting through fatigue and the energy generated from the home crowd, the Ottawa Gee-Gees earned the bronze. So Ottawa is the sole school to have both basketball teams win conference titles and Final 8 medals this season, and it’s the WBB Gees’ third-ever bronze at nationals.
The Gees’ big three were their leading trio in a 68-61 win against host UBC in the bronze medal game. Natsuki Szczokin, the graduating all-Canadian guard, played like there was no way she could leave bare-necked, racking up eight assists and eight steals to seal her tourney all-star spot.
Allie McCarthy, Ottawa’s all-purpose wing, added 20, and their top interior forward Emily Payne added 10.
For the most part, it was a matter of how long Ottawa’s legs would hold out. Six nights in a hotel, three time zones from home is affecting for young athletes. And with the threaded men’s / women’s schedule, the Gee-Gees finished their semifinal defeat against Carleton around 10:15 p.m. local time on Saturday night, then had a 12 noon tip-off against the host. The much more acclimated Thunderbirds had a couple extra hours between games.
So, it was unsurprising that UBC worked from a 16-point deficit to trade the lead with Ottawa in the fourth quarter. But Szczokin made two contested jumpers, and McCarthy earned and made free throws. Another ‘circle that’ play for the Gee-Gees was a rebound that 5-foot-8 guard Alissa Provo got with about two minutes left, when a desperate UBC was sending extra people to the offensive boards.
Hamilton native Keira Daly, the national rookie of the year, hit two late three-pointers to keep the Thunderbirds in it. All in all, the hosts filled their role as competitors. In her send-off game, UBC’s 6-foot-4 centre Jessica Clarke had a 17-point, 15-rebound double-double as a final salvo.
Afterword
So why do I write about this level of sport in spurts? I wonder about that sometimes. Overall, emotional investment is the silver lining, says a wise friend and fellow patron of the roundball arts.
One, it is good basketball that needs ballyhooing, and (b) for four days in March, there is a shot of vitality that comes from simply caring about it. Opting into an off-brand league surely counts for something, even if that might only be what I tell myself.
That is, in any walk of life, where make the connections that help us organize and not feel programmed. Too flowery? Probably.
For me, and a few others, this is uniquely Canadian sports drama, eight teams spread out over 7,000 km coming together to see who can capture the grand prize. It’s a way to learn about the country. We have a complement and contrast to the more bell-and-whistle (and TV timeout!) vertically integrated spectacle.
Comparisons are thieves of joy. As I’ve said, one model is transactional — it has long been straight business down in the NCAA, but now the technocracy has inserted its hooks and sucked out the soul.
The Canadian way has proof of concept at being transformative; it remains about people.
Ask a U Sports alumna or alumnus about that. Take the type who was a late bloomer in their teens, lightly recruited, but became a Player over their five seasons through determination, hunger, and encouragement, then saw the world playing pro in Europe or Australia, and imagine their response to being asked to imagine their life without athletic opportunities in Canada. That is the conversation playing out when the ball is tipped off at the nationals, regardless of who is playing or who is winning. In truth, the act of playing is the win. The conversation happening is the win. We need those conversations. It is worth seeking since who knows how long it will be proffered.
Laval will host the women’s tourney next season, and Calgary will host the men’s championship. Take care.
Note
All records and statistics are sourced from usportshoops.ca by Martin Timmerman.
Friendly reminder
I post about current affairs in Notes and on Bluesky (n8sager). Hopefully, this is enough for now. Please stay safe, and be kind.
March 16, 2025
Hamilton, Ont. : on the traditional territories of the Erie, Neutral, Huron-Wendat, Haudenosaunee, and Mississaugas.
Queen’s beat Carleton 80-75 in overtime in an Ontario regular-season game on Jan. 18, 2020. Brian Cheng was Carleton’s coach that season. The previous team to break 80 in regulation against Carleton was the Regina Cougars, who put up 81 on Oct. 1, 2017.
In Sinclair’s 129 games, only 16 opponents have scored 70 or more points.
Calgary scored 85 points against Carleton in a non-conference game on Dec. 30, 2007.