Ottawa Gee-Gees have better handle on quick turnaround for CIS Final 8 championship

The thought that popped to mind while the Ottawa Gee-Gees and Ryerson Rams were battling tooth and nail on Saturday night was, hey, whoever wins has to regroup for Carleton on championship Sunday.

The Gee-Gees, with 4-of-5 starters logging at least 32 minutes, outscored the Rams over the final three minutes for an 84-75 CIS Final 8 semifinal win, disappointing a standing-room-only crowd of 4,056 at Mattamy Athletic Centre in downtown Toronto. With the win, the cross-town rivals from the nation's capital, who took turns in the No. 1 spot in the coaches' poll this season, will meet at 3 p.m. ET Sunday in the third championship-game rematch in tourney history.

"We've been prepping all year for that," said Gee-Gees forward Vikas Gill, who scored 18 points in just 18 foul-limited minutes, including 13 in the third quarter when Ottawa made a huge surge, just as it did at the stage against the Rams seven days earlier in the OUA bronze-medal game. "We knew, three games in four days, so we always tried to do tournaments with three games in a row — McGill's tournament, ours. We've been knowing that if you're going to win it's probably going to be through Carleton on that third day.

"Ryerson is a very good team and we needed those 32 minutes from everybody," Gill added. "We're young guys and we'll get some sleep."

The final horn sounded at about 10:37 p.m., fewer than 16½ hours before tip-off. Ottawa also played the second semifinal last March before losing the final 79-67 to Carleton.

"Who are we playing?" Gee-Gees coach James Derouin quipped. "Yeah, guess who.

"I'll be honest, last year we were unprepared for it," Derouin added. "We got stuck at the Canadian Tire Centre late, and getting food, and other problems, and we played even earlier. We're prepared for this situation. We're prepared to play Carleton. These guys will get to bed and we'll have a shootaround in the morning. We know them pretty well. We're ready to go."

The Gee-Gees grinded on Saturday in a way that reminiscent of the mid-aughties Carleton teams that won six times in seven years between 2003 and '09. (The current Ravens still do that, but it gets less prominence when a team has the brother act of Phil Scrubb and Thomas Scrubb.)

National player of the year Johnny Berhanemeskel struggled to shoot over Ryerson's 6-foot-8 Jean-Victor Mukama, but scored 15 of his 20 in the second half. Power forward Gabriel Gonthier-Dubue had five assists out of the low post without committing a turnover. Wing Caleb Agada, with help from sixth man Medhi Tihani, held Ryerson's star guard Jahmal Jones to two points on 1-of-7 shooting. Aaron Best was also held to 12 on 3-of-13 from the floor.

"Agada did a great job and I think Jahmal got tight a little bit," Rams coach Roy Rana said. "We needed performances from more than one or two players. We played well but just didn't score in the second half.

The smaller Gee-Gees also had 11 offensive rebounds in the second half. They also had just 10 turnovers on the night against one of the country's most athletic teams.

"We're going to give up some O-boards, but we're not going to turn it over," said Derouin, whose team overcame a halftime deficit for the third time in a row. "Most of my very calm speech at halftime was just regarding the fight. You see Johnny and Mehdi and our little guys flying in for rebounds. The game was won on the defensive glass in the second half."

Berhanemeskel, not unlike former Ravens lodestar Osvaldo Jeanty sometimes did in big games, got his only three when it counted. The national player of the year hit for a four-point lead with 2:56 left. Point guard Mike L'Africain (13 points, three assists) also had an expiring-clock step-through jumper in the late going.

"He's 6-foot-2, probably 155 pounds, but he just grinds," Derouin said of Berhanemeskel. "You see the assists and the rebounds in traffic, When his shot wasn't going he delivered in all the other areas."

By no means is Ottawa hitting on all eight cylinders in a manner that suggests it can finally take down Carleton when it counts, rather than in an OUA final or the first post-Christmas regular-season game. Their second-half surge did project a certain we-got-this certitude. Ottawa also had a better night from deep, hitting 10-of-26 (38.5 per cent), much closer to the 41% (second in the country after Carleton) it hit during the regular-season. That was an improvement from Thursday's scare against Bishop's.

"We were talking about our identity and what happens if you don't make shots," Derouin said. "I told the guys, 'we're going to go down firing threes.' "  

The previous two so-we-meet-again finals involved Victoria and Waterloo in 1985 and '86 and St. Francis Xavier and Brandon in 2000 and '01. The same teams, first Victoria and then St. FX won each time.

Now the Gee-Gees have to try to set a precedent against a city rival that they're constantly compared to, even though Carleton has indirectly the template that Derouin has tweaked to create a winning culture.

"It's fun and not fun," said Gill, an Ottawa-area player from Stittsville, Ont., said of locking up with Carleton. "They're very talented and very good.

"To get a second chance at that, it's amazing. For Johnny and Gab's fifth year, we want to win it for them and there's no way to do it but through Ryerson and through Carleton."

Neate Sager is a writer for Yahoo! Canada Sports. Follow him on Twitter @neatebuzzthenet.