2012 ACAA Basketball Championships:Hurricanes Men's Basketball, Women's Basketball preparing to host best of the ACAA at 2012 Ch
Charlottetown - The Holland Hurricanes men's and women's basketball teams will be in action Friday at Holland College as the 2012 ACAA Basketball Championships get underway in Charlottetown.
In women's action, the Hurricanes enter the weekend as the four-seed. The women (10-11) will face the five-seed (also 10-11) UNBSJ Seawolves at 11 a.m. The men's basketball 'Canes (13-8) are the three-seed and will face the sixth-seeded MTA Mounties (9-12) at 3 p.m. If the women win they'll advance to face either STU or MSVU on Saturday afternoon. A men's win would mean a match-up with the STU Tommies Saturday night at 8 p.m.
Women's Preview
The Hurricanes enter the weekend quietly confident about facing the Seawolves. Two weekends ago they swept the Seawolves in two games on the very same court, winning by scores of 83-66 and 80-75. The two wins give the Hurricanes confidence entering the weekend, but the team is fully-aware the UNBSJ is a very capable team. The Seawolves finished the regular-season with a 91-70 win over the third-seeded MTA Mounties.
Head Coach Mike Connolly is excited to be hosting this year's championship and says his team is also looking forward to the challenge.
"We are obviously very excited about hosting the event. To be able to play an event of this stature on our home-court is a great advantage. We're really looking forward to Friday's game. Playing at home always has its distractions, but we have talked a lot about using the excitement as a positive and staying focus on the job at hand," explained Connolly.
The Hurricanes have a definite size advantage over the Seawolves. In their recent meeting Holland College controlled the boards and was able to get a lot of easy buckets in the post.
Connolly commented, "We definitely want to use our size. Jennifer Hinds was huge for us again them last time and we'll be counting on her to have another big game. We'll need big contributions from everyone. As has been the case all season, it will come down to our decision making. We have looked very good when we take care of the ball, share the ball and take good shots. I love our chances if we can do those things well. We have been very good at practice this week and I'm confident we'll have great game Friday."
Guard Lindy MacDonald also talked about hosting and the first-round match-up.
"It's going to be great. The atmosphere is always great in the playoffs and getting to host on our home-court will be pretty exciting. We all are really hoping for a big crowd for all of the games," said MacDonald.
"There is no question UNBSJ is going to give us a good test. At the same time, I really believe that if we play like we're capable of, we'll come out on top," explained MacDonald.
Men's Preview
The men's team is 3-0 this season against the MTA Mounties. Most recently, the Hurricanes defeated the Mounties 88-76 on February 12th.
Three wins over MTA gives Head Coach George Morrison confidence about the match-up, but the veteran coach also knows just how tough it is to beat the same team four-times in a season.
"History definitely tells us that beating an opponent four times in a season has its challenges. We need to be ready for a team hungry to beat us," said Morrison.
He also explained, "At the same time I think MTA is a good match-up for us. They have some size that can give us problems, but I do feel we present some tough individual assignments for them as well."
"We're not a team that is going to over-power anyone. We do however have some talented players who play well together. If we can play to our strengths and have our guards knock-down open looks, I think we have the ability to do big things this weekend," added Morrison.
Hurricanes leading scorer Leo Morris is definitely ready to get on the court this weekend.
"We are so ready to play. This weekend is what you play for all season long. When you start practice in September, this is the weekend you're starting to look forward to. We are all focused on taking it game-by-game this weekend. MTA is going to be ready to play and you can count on us being ready as well. If we can get past them we'll have a great semifinal game with STU to look forward to," explained the forward from Nassau, Bahamas.
With NSAC hosting the 2012 CCAA Men's Basketball Championship this year, both the ACAA Champions and runners-up will receive a spot in the national event as the host Rams have given up their spot in the event.
For all the results during the 2012 ACAA Basketball Championships go to: http://hollandcollege.com/acaa_2012/. You can also get the latest tournament results by following the Hurricanes on Twitter at www.twitter.com/hc_hurricanes.
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For more information contact:
Jeff Walker
jgwalker@hollandcollege.com