Carleton Ravens' Kyana-Jade Poulin dribbles the ball during a game against Queen's University.Marc Lafleur/The Canadian Press
Kali Pocrnic and the Carleton Ravens are ready for the challenge ahead as they seek a second straight national title at the U Sports women’s basketball Final 8.
The Ravens enter the tournament as the second seed and the reigning two-time Ontario University Athletics (OUA) champions. Carleton finished the regular season with a 21-1 record and atop the final U Sports national rankings.
“I feel like every team has a target on their back and mostly when you’re winning a lot, you have a huge target on your back,” said Pocrnic, a fourth-year guard from Oakville, Ont. “So I feel like everyone wants to really bring their best when they play us.
“It would really mean a lot [to repeat]. … I know we are very tough, and I know we can take on any challenge that comes at us.”
Carleton opens its title defence against the seventh-seeded Fraser Valley Cascades on Thursday at the University of Alberta in Edmonton.
The top-seeded Saskatchewan Huskies take on the No. 8 Calgary Dinos, the No. 3 Saint Mary’s Huskies face the No. 6 Queen’s Gaels and No. 4 Laval Rouge et Or match up against the No. 5 Alberta Pandas in the other quarter-final games Thursday. The championship final and bronze-medal game will be held Sunday.
This is the first time the Ravens have been in the Final 8 after winning a title. After claiming their first title in 2018, they failed to make it into the 2019 tournament.
“I think the best way to describe the season in terms of the group has been focus,” head coach Dani Sinclair said. “I think for all of us, it’s unchartered territory.
“I think we approached that [in] two ways: with the mentality that we can’t take that for granted. And then the other side of that is just having the maturity to understand what it takes to get here.
“We kind of term it this way: you have to approach it with the same level of work ethic to earn your way, but also like treat it like you’ve never been there before. But then also take advantage of the maturity that you developed by being there before, so lean on the experience side of it.”
Much of the Ravens’ core has returned, with only forward Emma Kiesekamp having graduated after last season. Guard Tatyanna Burke returned to the Ravens this season after spending a year studying in Japan.
Pocrnic paced the team with 15.1 points per game, while earning first-team OUA all-star honours – her fourth time being named a conference all-star. Burke received second-team OUA all-star honours, while Sinclair was named OUA coach of the year.
Pocrnic broke a single-game program record in a 94-77 win over McMaster in the OUA quarter-finals with 40 points on Feb. 24 before scoring a game-high 20 points and earning the Critelli Cup MVP award against Queen’s on March 2.
“She can be put into any situation and thrive, and I think that’s what makes her special,” Sinclair said. “She doesn’t need to have the ball in her hands, she doesn’t need to score a bunch of points.
“She is the epitome of a star player who just understands what it takes to win and she understands the moment. So she means everything to us. I’ve never coached a player that is that elite, that is so selfless and just incredible character and that obviously seeps into the rest of the team.”
The character Sinclair sees in Pocrnic ties back to the culture of the program.
“It’s a culture that is really, truly never satisfied and it’s never, I guess, relaxed in a way,” Pocrnic said. “We’re always in a constant panic and we’re always trying to raise our standards higher and higher each day, whether that be in a game or in practice. Once you reach like a certain bar, it’s like, ‘OK, yeah, we said we wanted you to be here, but now you got to be here,’ you know?
“It’s never, ever, ever perfect. It’s never, ever the way we want it. It’s just always pushing to be better and that culture just has been here since day one and I feel like everyone who decides to come here and everyone who decides to stay here, they have the same mindset we all have.”