EDMONTON – With their 10th game of the season hitting the century mark on the scoreboard, the No. 3 University of Alberta Golden Bears earned a 106-78 decision over the No. 10 University of Saskatchewan Huskies to finish first in the conference standings, Saturday night at Saville Community Sports Centre.
With the result the Huskies finish the regular season with a record of 12-8, good enough for sixth in the conference. Saskatchewan will host the Thompson Rivers WolfPack in a one-off conference play-in game slated for 7 p.m. inside the PAC on Friday, February 14.
Four of five starters, three of them playing their final regular season home game, cracked double digits on the scoresheet, senior forward Brody Clarke netting a double-double with 24 points and 12 rebounds while fellow seniors Ivan Ikomey and Dwan Williams scored 20 points and six points, respectively.
Fourth-year guard
Emmanuel Akintunde notched a game-high 25 points for the Huskies while sophomore guards
Alexander Dewar and
Noah Nickel put up 18 points each.
Clarke, fresh off claiming fourth in team history in career scoring on Friday night, scored the game's first five points as the home team jumped out to a 30-19 lead after 10 minutes.
The Golden Bears continued to control most of the play in the second, earning 14 points in the paint while Akintunde did most of the scoring for Saskatchewan, netting 10 of his team's 16 points in the quarter.
Fighting an increasing deficit, Nickel cut it to 17 with less than 20 seconds to play with a shot from long distance, only to have sophomore guard Geoffrey James hit a buzzer-beater from further downtown at the top of the arc, restoring the 20-point lead and putting Alberta ahead 55-35 at halftime.
After only shooting 36% in the first half, the Huskies got better in the third quarter, especially from beyond the arc, but so did the Bears, Clarke draining a three 90 seconds after heading into the paint from the same spot on the arc shoulder to grab a momentous slam dunk. The Engineering student put up nine total points in the third quarter, that dunk virtually cementing the victory as Alberta pushed the lead over 30 with the senior's efforts.
Saskatchewan didn't give up, however, starting out strong to start the final frame, yet the Bears kept getting baskets to keep up their lead.
