BURNABY, B.C. – Closing out the GNAC/CCAA challenge on Saturday night, the Simon Fraser Red Leafs men's basketball team (1-1) got contributions from all over the floor as they took down the Cal Poly Humboldt Lumberjacks (0-2) 97-79 to claim their first win of the 2022-23 season.
For the second straight contest, the Red Leafs were paced by a freshman who made his impact off the bench. After guard
Jimmy Zaborniak took the reins against Cal State Dominguez on Friday, it was guard / forward
Immanuel Oludele who stepped into the spotlight on Saturday. The 6-foot-4 rookie had a near double-double, with his game-high 20 points and nine rebounds coming in just 26 minutes of action.
"You can see the talent," noted SFU head coach
Steve Hanson of his rookie class. "They're gonna make mistakes – that's why they're called freshmen, they're fresh. But for Immanuel, Jimmy, Nigel, they all played huge minutes tonight and played key roles."
Oludele was one of six Red Leafs to hit double digits in scoring against the 'Jacks, as point guard
David Penney (19 points, seven assists), forward
Georges Lefebvre (14 points, 11 rebounds), guard
Jahmal Wright (12 points and three blocks), forwards
Zach Stone (11 points, six boards), and
Nigel Hylton (10 points) also did considerable damage.
The game was one of two halves, with the Lumberjacks opening the game on an 18-5 run, and taking a 46-45 lead into the midway break before SFU seemed to adjust and take their game to a different level in the later stages, especially with regards to their defensive intensity and attention to detail.
"Really satisfied," said Hanson of his team's overall performance. "We didn't do everything we wanted to in the first half, but there were some good things. Really, we did a much better job [in the second half] of getting back and loading them up in the half court. As coaches, I saw that we had to make adjustments, but I was also just really impressed with how tough guys were playing and how focused they were in terms of rebounding well, defending well. We did a great job with challenging them at the rim."
While SFU did force the 'Jacks into worse shooting splits in the second half, the starkest difference between the two was the Red Leafs' discipline – the Lumberjacks were an excellent 12-of-14 from the charity stripe in the first half, accounting for nearly a third of their scoring. In the final 20 minutes, the Jacks sank two of just three free throw tries, a remarkable reduction of 78 per cent in terms of attempts from half to half. In the same vein, SFU conceded 17 first-half points off turnovers to CPH, but gave up none by that same metric in the second half.
SFU trailed by as many as seven points, down 52-45 in the early stages of the third quarter, before the switch seemed to flip. Bookended by a couple of triples from the frosh Zaborniak and Oludele, SFU turned in a blistering 17-4 burst over a four-minute period to erase its seven-point deficit and take a 62-56 lead.
Up just 68-65, there was a key sequence with 10 minutes remaining in the contest. After Oludele missed a three, the rookie dashed in, snatched the rebound, and missed the ensuing layup. However, Wright did well to snag that rebound, was fouled on the way down, and sunk the free throws to restore the Red Leafs' five-point advantage 70-65.
Cal Poly never got closer than that, as SFU turned that momentum into a wild 15-2 run to open up an 18-point lead before cruising to their eventual triumph.
The Red Leafs and West gym will play host to a couple of BC-based squads in next week, as they're set to take on the Okanagan College Coyotes on Friday, November 18 at 7 p.m. SFU will then square off with the Douglas College Royals the next day, with tip-off set for 7 p.m. on Saturday, November 19.
Season tickets for Red Leafs men's basketball are now on sale at:
https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/sfu-mens-basketball-season-pass-2022-23-tickets-450926331797
Single-game tickets links are at:
https://www.eventbrite.ca/o/sfu-athletics-17612353468
For the latest information on SFU Athletics, visit
athletics.sfu.ca. You can also find us on social media at @SFU_Athletics.
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