THUNDER BAY -- When you’ve got the No. 7 team in the nation on the ropes, stomp.
It’s a lesson the Lakehead Thunderwolves men’s basketball team learned the hard way on Saturday night, blowing a 28-point third-quarter lead to the visiting Brock Badgers and settling for a weekend split after being edged 71-69.
Wolves guard Darnell Curtin, who hit four three-pointers in a frantic first-half, said panic set in as the Badgers went on a 19-4 run in the third and cut Lakehead’s 24-point half-time lead in half by the time the quarter ran out.
“You could hear (Brock) talking. They started getting a little bit of momentum and we started slowing down,” said Curtin, whose 16 points were one off Mor Menashe’s team lead.
“I stopped taking shots and some of the guys took a hold on some of the wide-open shots. We just have to fix this for next time."
The way it went down hurts, but Curtin vowed the team isn’t going to dwell on it in the lead-up to next weekend's tilts against No. 1 Carleton and No. 2 Ottawa.
“I think we have to take games like this as a learning lesson. We’ll kind of use it as a guide of what we need to do. People can say maybe we lost a little bit of energy in the second half, but we fight for the whole game,” Curtin said.
“We just need to capitalize on a couple of little mistakes.”
The Wolves were just about unstoppable in the opening half, building a 17-12 lead after the first quarter. Coming off a confidence-building 11-point win over these same Badgers the night prior, they stepped up their game in the second quarter, rolling over Brock with a barrage of long-distance bombs.
They hit six three-pointers in the period, including back-to-back-to back, two by Menashe and one by Henry Tan, to fuel a 19-0 run to end the half.
Menashe hit another three and Tan connected on a pair of free-throws early in the third to extend the Wolves lead to 28.
That’s when things started to fall apart.
The Badgers (6-4) reeled off nine straight points twice before the third ended and kept it rolling in the fourth, when Johneil Simpson singlehandedly placed his teammates on his back. A dunk, a field goal, two free-throws and a three-pointer completed an 11-0 run, the Wolves offence sputtering its way to the finish.
Daniel Cayer spotted Brock its first lead of the night with 79 seconds to go in regulation, the Badgers going in front 69-67 on his second three-pointer of the night.
Menashe tied it with a nice drive to the net, but after all but running the shot clock down on Brock’s ensuing possession, a foul with less than a second to shoot sent Michael Asemota to the line. He hit both shots and Alex Robichaud came up short on his game-winning three-point attempt.
It was the second time this season Lakehead (3-7) has blown a 20-point lead at home, the first time against Queen’s.
“I think they were afraid to lose. They were watching the scoreboard and they started making bad mistakes,” Furtado said. “We were prepared for the press breaks. We practiced it all week. We went through it over and over. In the moment, I guess these guys, which I don’t understand why, were just freezing.”
