Mustangs Backcourt Club Awards Dinner April 9th

Click Here for tickets (also available at the door)

On Saturday April 9th Mustangs Basketball will host along with their Alumni group the Mustangs Backcourt Club their annual Hall of Honour induction and Awards Dinner. This event will celebrated the recently concluded Mustangs season and its graduating senior players as well as storied past with the induction of members into the Mustangs Backcourt Club Hall of Honour.

Mustangs Senior Players:
- Marcus Barnett
- Brett lawrence
- Andrew Wedemire

The 2011 Hall of Honour Inductees are:

•Coach: Doug Hayes
- Former Men's Basketball Head Coach from 1974-1991
- Junior Varsity Men's Head Coach 1969-70, 1970-71
- OUAA West Coach of the Year 1976
- Two Wilson Cup Championships 1987-88, 1988-89
- Two time OUA West Conference Regular Season Champions
- Guided Mustangs to 4 Trips to National Championships (86,87,88,89)
- Regular Season Conference Record – 94 Wins 95 Losses
- Record at Nationals 4 wins 5 Loses
- CIAU Bronze Medalists 1985-86
- CIAU National Championship Tournament Consolation Champions 1986-87

•Team: 1990-91 National Champions
- Overall record: 33 wins and 2 losses
- Won the OUAA West Conference Championship
- Won the Ontario/Quebec Championship (Wilson Cup)
- Won CIAU National Championship (over Guelph 78-67)
- Won 5 Pre-conference Tournaments(Toronto, Carleton, McGill, Queen’s, and Purple and White)

Tickets are $75 per Adult and $60 per Student. Ticket purchase deadline is Friday, April 1, 2011.

Mustangs Visit Indigenous Services Basketball Tournament

Group Picture

Mustangs Ryan Barbeau, Peter Scholtes and Drew Vincent dropped by the Western Indigenous Services Basketball Tournament today to share their experiences as varsity athletes and teach these High School students some fundamental basketball skills. This annual day long basketball tournament takes place on the University of Western Ontario's campus (Althouse gym) and involves local area Aboriginal students.

For more information on this annual event please contact:
Shannon Thomas

Events Coordinator
Indigenous Services, The University of Western Ontario
Phone: 519.661.4095/1.888.661.4095

Matt Curtis - Blog entry #5

Former Mustangs great Mat Curtis shares his 5th installment of his experiences playing Pro basketball for TV Werne in Germany.


Hello all,
HELL YEAH its March!!!!! That means one thing, well two, St Patricks Day and NCAA basketball. I am very excited to watch some of the action. The NCAA (unlike the CIS) has done an excellent job with the webcasting of every game in decent quality. Its all available free through the NCAA and has alot of cool features.
It was frustrating trying to watch the feed of the ‘Stangs semi final playoff game at Lakehead. The feed at one point was just a stationary camera, then it went off and then the worst part, once it started rolling Paul Pappoaula (sp?) was on doing commentary; went from bad to worse in a hurry. I thought he was gonna go tackle Barbeau at one point, no wait he already did that.
That all aside, I was proud of how the team played, battling in a tough environment right until the end. Special congrats to the graduating seniors, Marcus, Brett and Andy on outstanding careers and I wish you luck in all your future endeavours. I will be unable to attend the Banquet in April unfortunately so congrats ahead of time.
As for me, not much is new here. We lost in the semi’s of our Cup, which was disappointing but with the squad we had at that time was to be expected. We are on a mini 3 game slide in which I am putting up some solid numbers, but without the help of our 3rd import who is injured, we are having problems finding ways to win games.
I am starting to evaluate my options for next season. I am exploring every opportunity available and am excited about the possibilities. I’ve put together some clips for teams to check out and you all can check out as well (see below).

Season ends April 16th, and April 19th I am off on a serious Eurotrip before returning May 8th. Going to visit Athens, Rome, Barcelona, Paris and Amsterdam (for the 3rd time). Should be a blast. I am excited to get back tho and start training for my new season, wherever that may be.
Other than that, not much to report from good ol’ Deutschland. Enjoy your March, best of luck to all your brackets and enjoy my boy JIMMER!!!!!!
Take Care
Matt

Wedemire in London Free Press

5th Senior Andy Wedemire

Click Here for London Free Press article

Update: London Banting & Greg Morrow pull off upset in OFSAA "AAA" Rd 1

Click Here for London Free Press article on London Banting's upset of #3 Martingrove at "AAA" OFSAA in Niagara Falls.

Happy Founder's Day!

On-Line Click Here

Wedemire & Scholtes Recognized With OUA West Awards

1st Team OUA West All-Star Andrew Wedemire

Andrew Wedemire 5th yr Forward from Sarnia was selected for the second consecutive year a 1st Team OUA West All-Star. Andy had another dominant season averaging 18.1 ppg and 7.6 rpg while shooitng an incredible 55.2% from the floor.

OUA West All-Rookie Team Peter Scholtes

Peter Scholtes 1st yr forward from London made the OUA West All-Rokkie Team. Peter averaged 9.3 ppg and 4.0 rpg this past season while displaying his versatile game scoring both inside and out.

2010-11 OUA MEN’S BASKETBALL MAJOR AWARD WINNERS

West Player of the Year

Isaac Kuon - Windsor

West Rookie of the Year

Patrick Donnelly – Laurier

West Defensive Player of the Year

Greg Carter – Lakehead

West Ken Shield Award

Andre Smyth – Windsor


West Coach of the Year

Scott Morrison - Lakehead

West First Team All-Stars

Isaac Kuon – Windsor

Kale Harrison – Laurier

Jamie Searle – Lakehead

Andrew Wedemire – Western

Dan McCarthy – Guelph


West Second Team All-Stars

Cam Michaud – McMaster

Lien Phillip – Windsor

Maxwell Allin – Laurier

Cam McIntyre – Waterloo

Venzal Russell – Lakehead


West All Rookie Team

Patrick Donnelly – Laurier

Peter Scholtes – Western

Cedric Kasongo – Brock

Taylor Black – McMaster

Jamar Forde – Laurier

Western Gazette Article on Mustang's Final Game

On-line link Click Here

Ryan Barbeau

March 4, 2011


By Daniel Da Silva Western Gazette

Awful fourth quarter ends Western’s season early

After playing the Lakehead Thunderwolves twice in the final weekend of the regular season, Marcus Barnett and the men’s basketball team felt they had the perfect plan to pull off an upset last Saturday.

“We learned a lot about their individual personnel after playing them twice. I was guarding their starting point guard Greg Carter. I learned he couldn’t shoot, so I double–teamed other players and I didn’t even guard Carter. He went 1-10 from the field [on Saturday],” Barnett said

It worked for three quarters, as the Mustangs went into the fourth down by a single point. Yet the Thunderwolves managed to pull away in the final stanza and knock out the Mustangs 63-49.

So what happened?

“Their coach noticed [Carter] was hurting their team and he was benched the entire fourth quarter,” Barnett said. “It made us play them honestly and they were able to execute their offence more proficiently.”

It was a stark change for the Mustangs who were strong defensively all game. In the first quarter, they managed to accomplish the rare feat of scoring only four points, yet were within striking distance of the favoured Thunderwolves.

“We had a terrible first quarter offensively. Our defence kept us in the game. We felt we had to keep up the defence and then some shots will fall if we execute a little better on the offensive end,” Mustangs head coach Brad Campbell said.

The defence definitely held Western in, holding Lakehead — who normally average 75 points per game — to only 22 by the half. Though for Barnett, this was a pretty mundane accomplishment.

“Lakehead is a very easy team to defend because they don’t have one particular guy who can explode for points. They have a lot of one dimensional players who can only do certain things,” Barnett said.

But the Mustangs simply couldn’t get it going at the other end of the floor. Throughout the game, they only shot 28.1 per cent and turned the ball over 14 times. Andrew Wedemire and Quinn Henderson were the only two who performed offensively, both hitting at over 40 per cent and scoring 14 and 13 points respectively.

Yet the Mustangs remained in the game until the fourth quarter. But when Carter was replaced, Lakehead stars Jamie Searle and Yoosrie Salhia stepped up. Searle put up 14 points and 14 rebounds in 38 minutes while Salhia led all scorers with 19.

“Searle has been their big shot maker. He seems to make big shots for them when it counts,” Campbell said.

“Salhia is hard to stop because he is strong and physical inside. That’s hard to take away with our size and strength,” Barnett added.

For Barnett, Wedemire and Brett Lawrence, the loss was a bitter pill to swallow as it effectively ended their careers in purple and white.

“But we never really met our true potential [this year]. I will probably always wonder how we would have been as a team if we had Adam [Jespersen] and Garrett [Olexiuk] healthy for the entire season,” Barnett said.

Despite those big losses, the Mustangs still have a lot to look forward to next year according to coach Campbell.

“We have a bunch of young pieces coming along, in particular two rookies, Quinn Henderson and Peter Scholtes, who started a lot for us. Due to injuries, they wound up getting a lot of time, which is fantastic for their development,” he said. “If we can get our players healthy, we will have a solid core to build around next year.”