Brandon men roll over Regina

Two weeks ago, Lodie Kenyi scored 58 points in a game for the Regina Cougars.

On Friday night at the Healthy Living Centre, the entire team didn’t hit that until the game was all but over.

The Brandon University Bobcats delivered their best defensive effort of the season to beat the Cougars 94-74, improving to 4-5 on the Canada West men’s basketball season.

“We executed the game plan pretty well. We defended, multiple efforts, and rebounded the ball OK,” said Bobcats head coach Gil Cheung.

“We’re not perfect by any means on defence but effort makes up for a lot of mistakes and I thought our effort was pretty good.”

The Bobcats were down a starter as Malik Brown injured his ankle in practice this week, but Munroop Gill stepped up and dropped 24 in his first start, while Pablo Carvajal played a career-high 16 minutes off the bench, hitting all three shots he took for nine points.

“Malik’s a huge part of the team and what we do. Guys stepped up and made plays on both ends of the court, trusted the pass and we’re lucky to get that one,” Cheung said.

“Pablo’s just a plug-and-play type of guy. Moves it, shoots it, defends, and it’s great for him to have a good game for us.”

While the Bobcats typically shoot a ton of three-pointers, they found almost all their offence by driving to the hoop.

Gill proved more or less unguardable as he beat his man for a few open layups.

Bhatti made three more layups early, and dished to a slashing Max Winters for a two-handed jam as the Bobcats pulled ahead 12-5 in the first quarter.

On the other end, Brandon limited Kenyi to just three points and took a 21-10 lead after 10 minutes.

The Cougars narrowed the gap to 33-26 midway through the second quarter, but after a Bobcats timeout, Bhatti stepped up and drilled a three-pointer, then a contested jumper to extend the lead to double-digits again.

Regina was able to score inside a bit more down the stretch, narrowing the lead to five before Gill took the ball coast-to-coast in 3.9 seconds for a buzzer-beating layup to go up 44-37 at halftime.

BU doubled its lead thanks to lockdown defence on a 7-0 run that spanned nearly five minutes in the third quarter.

When Regina finally hit a few shots and cut the deficit to five, Arjun Hehar broke the run before Gill added a steal and score, then picked another Cougar’s pocket and got fouled on his next transition layup.

Carvajal knocked down his second three of the game, while Bhatti played the role of distributor, notching a double-double with his 10th assist in just 22 minutes of action.

The Bobcats extended their lead to 68-50 heading into the final frame.

And they didn’t look back.

Travis Hamberger pushed them on a 7-0 run to win the first two minutes of the fourth and effectively slam the door shut.

The Bobcats led by 30 before pulling some starters and coasting to their biggest blowout of the season.

Bhatti finished with 20 points while 10 players scored for Brandon.

Interestingly, the Cougars have lost the first half of each weekend and won the rematch every time while the Bobcats are 4-1 on Fridays but have yet to win the second game.

They meet again today at 7 p.m.

“They’re good. (Steve Burrows) is one of the best coaches in the conference and they’re going to be ready to compete,” Cheung said. “We can’t focus on what they do. We just got to make sure we execute (tonight) and come with the same energy and effort on the defensive end.”

» tfriesen@brandonsun.com

» Instagram: @thomasfriesen5