Men's Basketball Taking ACAA Championships "One Game at a Time"

At the beginning of the 2016-17 season, the St. Thomas University Tommies men's basketball team set a goal to make the playoffs.

Now that they've reached that goal they plan to take it one game at a time, beginning with the Atlantic Collegiate Athletic Association quarterfinals against the Crandall University Chargers.

"Our goal from the beginning was to make playoffs, so now we have a new goal," Tommies head coach Scott MacLeod said. "The guys are excited and ready to go."

The Tommies enter the ACAA basketball championships, hosted by Mount Allison University, as the sixth seed. They dropped all three of their regular season games against the Chargers, but MacLeod believes if his team takes care of turnovers, transition defense, and rebounding they will find success.

"We need to reduce turnovers and work on transition defense. Crandall likes to run the floor and generate quick offence, so we need to take that away," he said. "Rebounding will be important for us as well. We'll be focusing on limiting their second-chance points."

The Chargers scored a total of 58 points off offensive rebounds in the season series against the Tommies, capitalizing on their size advantage.

The Tommies' starting five—Dylan Gallant, Travis Valanne, Jeremy Speller, Sam Drummond, and Mitch Claybourn—will be key this weekend as that group accounts for 80 percent of the team's scoring and 76 percent of the teams rebounding.

MacLeod is also hoping to get a solid contribution from second-year guard Brady Atkinson.

"Brady's shown some spark the last couple of games, so I'll be looking for him to step up again this weekend," he said.

The Tommies will tipoff against the Chargers in the ACAA quarterfinals Friday, March 3 at 5:00 pm.
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