The University of Manitoba Bisons men’s basketball team made a huge statement on Friday night, shutting down a potent Regina Cougars offence.
Heading into the weekend, Manitoba knew they’d need to shut down the Tull brothers – Brandon and Jonathan and they did just that. Jonathan had just eight points all night while Brandon finished with 15 – however seven of those points all occurred in the final 10 minutes as the herd were able to prevent the dynamic guards from driving into the lane.
Keith Omoerah, AJ Basi, and Justus Alleyn did a tremendous job defensively. Along with the Tull brothers, shifty guard Alex Igual was also shut down, scoring just nine points and shooting an abysmal 3-of-14 from the field.
Basi was the catalyst on offence for Manitoba with a game-high 27 points off of 5-of-10 shooting from three-point range. He was also a perfect 8-for-8 from the free throw line in a game where the Bisons never trailed after the first quarter.
What we were really looking for was to exploit our guard play,” Basi said postgame.
“We feel like we have some of the best guard play in the conference and especially when flash [Ilarion Bonhomme II] is healthy, but at the same time so does Regina with the two Tull Brothers and Igual and McGowan off the bench they’re right there with us, so we just really wanted to attack them and fortunately we were able to get them into foul trouble and get rolling in the first half there.”
Trailing by as much as 15 points, the Cougars were able to trim the Bisons lead down to as little as two in the fourth quarter, however that’s when Jonathan Alexander came alive, scoring nine of his 14 points in the final six minutes of play, including an emphatic dunk to close things off as the home side pulled out an 89-82 win.
