Dinos sweep Bisons off a cliff to end their season

By Ashton Chugh, February 26 2015 —

In the last home game of his illustrious college career, Jarred Ogungbemi-Jackson led the Dinos to a convincing 93–81 win over the University of Manitoba Bisons on Feb. 21 at the Jack Simpson gym.

The intensity of the elimination game was apparent from the outset with both teams playing aggressive defence. Ogungbemi-Jackson credits the play of Australian guard Josh Owen-Thomas for the Dinos’ success.

“Josh Owen-Thomas has one of the toughest jobs because he’s always guarding one of their best players full court, rebounding and playing some point guard duties and he came up big,” Ogungbemi-Jackson said.

The Dinos led the low-scoring half by a 36–35 margin.

After briefly falling behind in the third, consistent play from Bisons sixth-man A.J. Basi — who scored 20 points on the night — tied the game at 55 midway through the third. Owen-Thomas responded by scoring four straight points and Jasdeep Gill followed up with a three pointer. The highlight of the night came late in the quarter when Ogungbemi-Jackson threw a lob pass to rookie guard L.J. Hegwood for a vicious alley-oop dunk that had everyone on their feet, swinging the momentum back in Calgary’s favour. The Dinos led 65–57 going into the fourth.

Calgary’s lead was cut to three in the late stages of the fourth quarter, but the excitement of the game got to the Bisons as they committed a flurry of fouls throughout the stanza. The Dinos went 16-for-18 on their parade to the free-throw line to maintain their lead.

With 90 seconds left in the game, rookie of the year Lars Schlueter drilled a dagger in the hearts of the Bisons when he hit a three, which secured the Dinos a trip to the quarterfinals.

Ogungbemi-Jackson scored a game-high 23 points, while adding six rebounds and six assists. As Calgary’s playoff path will continue on the road, the fifth-year point guard kissed the Dinos logo at centre court after ending his home career.

The Dinos will travel on Feb. 27–28 to Abbotsford to take on the No. 1 University of Fraser Valley in a best-of-three game series.

Tipoff goes at 7 p.m. and the game can be watched live on canadawest.org.