THUNDER BAY – Manny Furtado should have Kache Kopec roll an ankle every week.
The long-distance specialist sat out Friday’s night’s heartbreaking loss to Queen’s with an injury, but returned with a vengeance on Saturday night, dropping a game-high 27 points on the visiting York Lions to help the Lakehead Thunderwolves snap a five-game losing skid with a 79-75 win that wrapped up pre-Christmas play.
Add in 23 from a rejuvenated Bacarius Dinkins, who had 19 at halftime, and the struggling Wolves might have hit on recipe for success in the second half – if a schedule that includes the likes of Ryerson, Carleton and Ottawa doesn’t cause too much fear to sink in over the holiday.
“Sometimes you’re feeling good and sometimes you’re not,” said Kopec, who buried six of 15 three-point attempts on the night.
“We did a really good job moving the ball around and getting good shots. It’s nice when you’re a shooter and you’re comfortable with the shots you’re taking and not forcing anything. I felt I didn’t get a lot of shots that were forced. It was always in flow, good passing, good spacing.”
It helped Kopec that Dinkins finally broke out of a mini slump, finally able to find away to beat the double- and triple teams the opposition surrounded him with in recent outings.
The answer was simple – stop and pop.
Dinkins was lights out with mid-range jumper for the first half, forcing the Lions to pay more attention to the Florida import with the ball away from the net.
Whatever works, he said.
“It opened up my game a lot. If I can get my jumper going I can do both, inside and outside,” Dinkins said.
“With the double teams, I just have to find different ways to get myself going to get my shots up. And it’s not just by posting up … Hopefully I can continue from what I left off tonight in the next couple of games.”
Finding another guy who can shoot, in addition to Alex Robichaud and Henry Tan, could be key to second-half success, Dinkens said, pointing to Kopec.
“We’ve been struggling from the three-point line, and coming out and making shots like that, they’ll have to try to defend not just the inside, but the outside too. They couldn’t do both tonight,” Dinkens said.
Furtado, the Wolves third-year coach, said he thinks the team took a huge step against the Lions (2-2).
“That’s a huge character win for our guys, being what happened last night and the big letdown, being up as much as we were,” Furtado said.
He was particularly happy to see Dinkins get going again.
“We challenged him last night and called him out a little bit. Eight (points) and seven (rebounds) from our main guy isn’t acceptable from one of our main guys.”
The Lions led by one after the opening quarter and held leads in the second and third.
Kopec put LU in front for good with a three late in the third, then Henry Tan hit one from half-court at the buzzer, the Wolves up 63-56 after three.
York went on a 7-0 run in the fourth, punctuated by a Brandon Ramirez trey that drew the Lions into a one-possession game, down 75-72 with 2:13 to go, and made another three-point play to make it 78-75 with 51 seconds left in regulation.
