THUNDER BAY – Given the number of top 10 teams the Lakehead Thunderwolves managed to beat this season, it’s a bit ironic that the No. 11 seed was the team to knock them out of the OUA playoffs in the opening round.
The visiting Guelph Gryphons opened a 14-point lead in the first half, which Lakehead cut to four at the half, but it was the T-Wolves shooting woes – and early foul trouble to leading scorer Michael Okafor – that cost the team a chance to move on.
Okafor was not his usual self in the 67-64 defeat, picking up three first-half fouls and adding a fourth early in the third, leading to extended time on the bench and forcing him to play a little more cautiously without the ball, usually one of his most valuable assets to the defensive-minded Thunderwolves.
The senior wing, playing what turned out to be his final game in the blue and gold, had a rough shooting night, going 0-for-9 from distance, but certainly wasn’t alone. The Wolves as a whole were good on just 6-of-33 three-point attempts and shot just 34.3 per cent from the field.
It was a rough way to end a season that saw the team ranked in the top 10 nationally on multiple occasions.
“Six-for-33?” responded guard Laoui Msambya, who topped all Lakehead players with 19 points.
“You know, I felt like we should have tried more to attack, to try to find something that works. But 6-for-33, that’s bad.”
Lakehead coach Ryan Thomson didn’t have many more answers.
“I think if you look at the first half, they shot the ball really well. I don’t think we did a good enough job impacting the ball, playing physical, being disciplined. For us too, our shooting percentages across the board, it’s tough to win games like that,” Thomson said.
“I think we were a bit tentative, I don’t know.”
The sixth-seeded Thunderwolves jumped out in front 6-2, but a 7-0 run gave the Gryphons a 9-8 advantage, a lead they’d keep until the early moments of the second half, when Alston Harris converted a Msambya steal to even the contest 45-45.
The Thunderwolves kept hanging around, and it was Msambya who kept them on track, scoring three straight buckets, the final one coming off an offensive rebound on an Eric Gonzalez miss, and Lakehead took a 58-56 lead with 2:10 to play in the third.
It was a very shortlived lead.
Guelph’s Emmanuel Ansah threw down a thunderous dunk to tie the game and hit another bucket before the quarter came to an end to give the Gryphons a 60-58 lead after 30 minutes.
Lakehead had plenty of chances to tie the game or take the lead, including forcing a Guelph turnover with 46.6 seconds to go and a short-clock violation with 7.9 seconds left on the clock.
That’s when Msambya’s magic ran out. He threw up a last-second, desperation three, but found nothing but air and the Grpyphons were on to Round 2 on Saturday against the Windsor Lancers.
“Obviously that was our goal, all year, trying to get to the national tournament. But this is just a show of the OUA that there’s really no nights off, regardless of who’s on the schedule," Thomson said.
