The University of Regina's men's basketball team started out slowly on Friday night in its Canada West play-in game against Mount Royal, but a huge second quarter lifted the Cougars to a 106-83 victory at the Centre for Kinesiology, Health & Sport.
Myles Hamilton was sensational in the win for the Cougars, leading all players with a season-high 29 points and also pulling down a game-high 12 rebounds to collect a double-double.
"At playoff time you need your leaders to step up and do exactly that, and tonight Myles had great energy on both ends of the floor and we were able to feed off that a bit," Cougars head coach
Steve Burrows said after his fifth career postseason victory.
The win sends the Cougars into the Canada West quarterfinals, where they'll meet up with No. 4-seeded Saskatchewan in a best-of-three series that begins next Thursday in Saskatoon.
Regina trailed Mount Royal by seven after the opening period, but the hometown Cougars hit five three-pointers during a 22-5 run that put them into the lead for good. Regina ended up outscoring MRU by a 36-16 margin in the second quarter to take a 56-43 advantage into halftime, and then ended any hope of a Mount Royal comeback after scoring seven straight points early in the fourth quarter which extended the lead to 24.
"I thought we did a pretty good job defensively in the last three quarters which allowed us to get some chances in transition," Burrows added. "They're a tough team and we're happy to be moving on."
The Cougars were on fire as a team from three-point range, hitting 15 of their 32 attempts from the perimeter.
Carter Millar led the barrage, going 5-for-5 to become the first U of R player to make five threes in a game without a miss since
Ryan Delwo also went 5-for-5 in a game at Mount Royal during the 2013-14 season.
Millar finished with 21 points, seven rebounds, and a game-high six assists for Regina. Three other Cougars joined Hamilton and Millar in double figures –
Nick Barnard tied his season high with 14 points,
Greishe Clerjuste added 12, and
Matt Barnard finished with 10.
Mount Royal's Patrick Vandervelden was 7-for-8 from the field and finished with a team-leading 16 points in 16 minutes on the floor. Glen Yang added 13 points, five rebounds, four assists, and four steals for MRU, while Nick Tancon scored 11 points and L.J. Hegwood finished with 10.
The Cougars and Saskatchewan will be meeting for the second time in just three weeks, as the two teams closed out the conference schedule against each other last weekend with a two-game split in Regina. Next weekend will mark the second time the provincial rivals have met in a best-of-three quarterfinal series, with the other coming back in 2011 in Saskatoon which the Huskies took in two straight games.
NOTES: The Cougars are now 27-9 all-time at home in the postseason including 3-1 in single-game elimination contests.
