SASKATOON – Defence was the story as the University of Saskatchewan Huskies men's basketball team rolled to a 71-58 victory over the Thompson Rivers WolfPack in Canada West playoff action inside the PAC Friday night.
 
"That was a good playoff win, if you're not going to be solid at the defensive end in the playoffs you're going to have difficulty so that was a good win for us," said Huskies head coach Barry Rawlyk. "I give full credit to all of our assistant coaches, they came up with a really good game plan and to all of our players for executing it."
 
The win marks the fourth year in a row that Saskatchewan has won a playoff contest on home court, they will now await results from around the league to determine their quarter-final opponent but all signs appear to point to a matchup with the UBC Thunderbirds in Edmonton.
 
Holding UBC to under 20 points in all four quarters, the Huskies defence limited the WolfPack to shooting just 32.8 per cent from the floor as a team while also grabbing 56 rebounds to the visitors' 32, including a 20-6 advantage in offensive boards.
 
"I thought we did what we had to do to try and keep the game close but at the end of the day they made more plays than we did and they beat us on the glass," said WolfPack head coach Scott Clark. "That's a credit to them, they played hard and their effort was great but I'm proud of what my guys did and their effort as well. At the end of the day if you give up 20 second-chance points that's just too many."
 
Alexander Dewar led a balanced Huskie offence with 18 points in the game. Emmanuel Akintunde scored 14 and pulled down 11 boards for the double-double while JT Robinson added 11 points and six assists.

Playing in what was the final game of his WolfPack career, fifth-year guard Micheal Rouault was electric for Thompson Rivers scoring 21 points and adding seven rebounds and four assists. Another fifth year, Anton Bilous, was the only other player to crack double digits for his squad, finishing with 10 points.
 
An 8-0 run to start the game a lead they would never surrender en route to the 41-31 halftime lead.
 
All thoughts of a WolfPack comeback were put to bed in a third quarter that saw the Huskies limit the visitors to just 9 points over 10 minutes.
 
Saskatchewan made the advantage 20 halfway through the fourth thanks to a three-pointer from Dewar and from there they were able to run out the clock for the victory.