In their Canadian Elite Basketball League debut tournament, the Ottawa BlackJacks are clearly in no hurry to come home.
In fact, they still have a fighting chance to win the thing.
Against the Saskatchewan Rattlers in a showdown for the final playoff spot Wednesday night, the BlackJacks scored an 87-68 victory at the Meridian Centre in St. Catharines. After an 0-2 start, they finished the round-robin portion of the Summer Series as the fourth seed with a 3-3 record and now take on the Guelph Nighthawks (3-3) in a quarterfinal on Thursday at 7:30 p.m.
After falling behind Saskatchewan 23-16, the BlackJacks outscored the Rattlers 44-20 in the second and third quarter, then stayed on top with a 27-25 finish in the final 10 minutes.
Leading the way on the scoreboard for Ottawa was Thomas Scrubb, who has 20 points in 22:42 of floor time. Scrubb was good on nine of 16 field goal attempts, including two of four three-point tries.
Eric Kibi and Shaquille Keith chipped in with 12 points apiece, while Kibi led the way with eight rebounds.
Thursday’s game will be available on CBCSports.ca, the CBC Gem App, Twitch (CEBLeague) and TSN1200. A win against Guelph Thursday would put the BlackJacks in Saturday’s semi-final.
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