A battle of undefeated men’s basketball teams on Oct. 30 was settled when the Humber Hawks staged a 13-point run in the last three minutes of the game while shutting down the formidable Mohawk Mountaineers.
The Mountaineers of Hamilton boasted a 3-0 record at the time and were ranked seventh in the country. The home team Hawks were ranked 11th nationally and by the night’s end, the team defied the pundits with that powerful late surge in the upset.
“They play very tough,” Hawks head coach Omar Miles said of the tough opposition Mohawk posed.
“They’re very talented, well coached, and they’re tough. We just had to match it or be better, and I thought today at the end we were just better, more tough, and we made stops,” he said.
For the Hawks, that run in the last three minutes of the game was the difference maker, which was started off of a highlight reel dunk from guard Kwabena Antwi that blew the roof off of the North campus gym.
“It was a chain of events,” said forward Malik Grant about the momentum shift after Antwi’s slam-dunk.
“It was our defence and then [Antwi] went out and got the ball and just gave us life again. Everybody gained that confidence after he got that dunk, able to get a few buckets back together and then ended up keeping the lead,” Grant said.
The 13-0 run, along with depth scoring from the Hawks’ bench, was a change of pace from the first two games, which were led by standout performances from Grant.
It was a quieter night for Grant, but he did record a double-double with 10 points and 10 rebounds.
“[Grant is] very good, so what’s going to happen is teams are going to scout, they’re going to put their best player, best defensive guy on them, and he’s just going to have to play through it,” Miles said.
“So, we have to have the next man up mentality and have other guys step up, and we had a collective today,” he said.
The 85-78 win over the Mountaineers highlights the depth of the Hawks’ roster, with half of their points scored last Wednesday coming off the bench.
Miles talked about the importance of the team’s depth and defence as key factors to success going forward in their 2024-25 campaign.
“Last year we built a toughness mentality and we’re carrying that, too. A lot of it is we’re hanging our hats on our defense,” he said. “We can score, but also we could defend, and I think when we defend it ends up being easier offense.”
“[Mohawk] defended, which turned into easy scores for them, and I thought if we could eliminate some of that, it would have been a better game for us. But yeah, we took care of business at the end,” Miles said.
With the win over Mohawk, Humber moved into 7th best in the country by the Canadian Collegiate Athletic Association, while Mohawks slid to 13th place.
The Hawks beat Fanshawe 79-57 on Nov. 6 and look to continue their undefeated 4-0 start to the season when they return home to face Niagara on Sunday.
