THUNDER BAY – A home playoff dates is so close the Lakehead Thunderwolves can taste it.
The OUA men’s basketball team took another step toward that goal on Saturday night, keeping pace with third-place Wilfrid Laurier in the western conference playoff race with a hard-fought 89-80 home-court win over the visiting Windsor Lancers.
Michael Okafor led the T-Wolves (9-5) with 21 points, with Laoui Msambya chipping in 18 and Nathan Bilamu coming off the bench to put up 17 in just 20 minutes of action, helping the home side claim its seventh straight victory after a 2-5 start.
Msambya, who had nine of his points in the fourth, said it was another slow start, but once they found the right gear, they took their game up a notch, erasing a three-point deficit after one quarter to lead by as many as 17 in the third.
“I think we started to trust in ourselves and our teams started to believe in ourselves, grabbing rebound, running the fast break. I feel like this year we have a good chemistry. Even though we had a bad start this year, we stuck together and that’s why we have seven straight wins,” Msambya said.
“I’m proud of this team.”
The game played out a lot like Friday’s lopsided win.
The T-Wolves found themselves in an early hole, but rallied to take a large lead. They kept it on Friday night, though the Lancers made them work a little harder in Saturday’s rematch at the C.J. Sanders Fieldhouse, thanks in large part to Thomas Kennedy.
The Windsor forward, who LU coach Ryan Thomson says probably belongs in a Division 1 program south of the border, put up a game-high 26 points and snagged an unbelievable 23 rebounds, many coming in the latter half of the fourth when Kennedy was playing with four fouls.
“He’s a handful. We talked about him all week and I still think sometimes it catches people off guard just how big and strong and athletic he is. He’s a Division 1 player if I’ve ever seen one playing in Canada. We certainly didn’t keep him in check tonight with 26 and 23, but he’s one of the best players in the conference,” Thomson said.
What spurred the Thunderwolves to victory was the team’s depth. The Lancers (5-9) couldn’t simply focus on Msambya and Okafor because the other three players on the court proved equally as dangerous throughout the night.
In the early going it was rookie pivot Flynn Gilmour, who grabbed an offensive board and converted it on back-to-back LU possessions.
At other times it was Dylan Morrison or Jared Kreiner putting up key points as Lakehead looked to add to their growing lead in the third.
In the third and fourth it was Bilamu, who had eight second-half points, and Chris Sagl, who scored a pair of key baskets in the fourth, each restoring a 10-point LU lead, immediately after the Lancers scored to cut the lead to eight.
The Lancers didn’t help themselves, getting into foul trouble in the second half. Lorenzo Barbieri and Brayden Amlin fouled out and Kennedy and Ziphion Grant were at four fouls with plenty of time remaining on the clock.
Grant finished with 15 points.
Lakehead also refrained from turning the ball over, giving it away just six times, compared to 14 by Windsor, less than half the total of the night before.
The Thunderwolves wrap up regular-season play next weekend on the road against Western (6-6), the lone team that could catch LU for fourth place and a home playoff date on March 16.
