Box Score REGINA — A late-season surge has lifted the Winnipeg Wesmen into the top three of the Canada West conference following another win Saturday night.
Shawn Maranan set a new career-high for assists in a season and the Wesmen men's basketball team closed conference play with an 85-76 win over the Regina Cougars, finishing off a weekend sweep.
The win was Winnipeg's fifth straight and its seventh in the past eight outings, and it allowed the Wesmen RPI to soar past the likes of UBC and Manitoba and into third in the conference in advance of the conference tournament Feb. 21-25. The top four teams earn byes through the play-in round.
Maranan had a team-high 19 points and nine assists leaving him with 144 assists on the season, a total that stands ninth in modern Canada West history. He surpassed Erfan Nasajpour's 143 assists in the 2006-07 season for the fourth most by a Wesmen in a season since Winnipeg joined the Canada West.
Maranan's 7.2 assists per game are also a career-high and are tops in the country.
Five Winnipeg players scored in double figures with
Mikhail Mikhailov scoring 16 with eight rebounds.
Malachi Alexander had 14 points on 6-for-9 shooting,
Alberto Gordo scored 12 and
Kato Jaro added 11 off the bench.
The Cougars opened the game on a 9-0 run but Winnipeg responded with a 16-6 stretch to take the lead and never trailed again. The Wesmen closed the quarter on a 14-4 run to lead 21-17 and three minutes into the second quarter pushed their lead to double digits on a
Ryan Luke layup that made it 29-19.
The Wesmen outscored Regina 28-16 in the second quarter and led 49-33 at the half.
Nick Barnard's 19 points led the Cougars (13-7), who floundered in the month of February. Regina has lost four straight and five of its last six after starting the season with eight straight wins. The Cougars were 12-2 on Jan. 20 but have been relegated to a play-in game at the conference tournament that will be hosted by U of M.
Arinze Emeka-Anyakwo added 15 points for the Cougars, who got 12 from Lodie Kenyi and 10 points and 10 rebounds from Matt Barnard.
Seedings for the conference tournament will not be official until Thursday night after Victoria and Thompson Rivers play the second of two rescheduled games. The Wesmen, however, can finish no lower than third and would move up to No. 2 if TRU were to pull an upset and sweep the doubleheader.
