Gebeyehu, Magnusson step up as BU takes bronze

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This article was published 30/12/2022 (628 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

WINNIPEG — Tili Gebeyehu and Blake Magnusson have quietly paid their dues since joining the Brandon University Bobcats in 2020.

The forward duo made some noise on Friday.

Magnusson put up 12 points and Gebeyehu added eight as the Bobcats came back from 17 points down to beat the Regina Cougars 96-76 in the third-place game of the 54th annual Wesmen Classic men’s basketball tournament at the Duckworth Centre on Friday.

Gebeyehu and Magnusson played career highs of 19 minutes apiece and were instrumental in the comeback and putting the game out of reach.

“Third game in three days, they’ve been around for three years now and it was good for them,” said Bobcats head coach Gil Cheung. “They had a lot of their buddies in the crowd too, a lot of energy. I thought they played really well. The guys were really excited for them and they gave us a good spark.”

“They deserve it too,” Cheung added. “They don’t play a ton of minutes … but they show up every single day, they go lift, they go to class. You have to give those kids a chance. Tili did a great job, Blake did a great job. I’m just happy for them to have some success.”

Gebeyehu was one of the best players in Brandon in his graduating class. The Crocus Plainsmen alum played under former Bobcat Earl Thompson Jr., and kept working with the now-professional hooper during the COVID-19 year and his redshirt season in 2021-22.

But the journey hasn’t been easy, as is usually the case for a student-athlete who rarely sees their efforts translate to minutes.

“I think about giving up every day, but every day I find a little piece in me to keep going … keep pushing, show up, get my work in,” Gebeyehu said, adding his teammates keep him going.

“Super supportive, the guys, from Anthony (Tsegakele) to Blake to Simba (Ian Gasana) … to Malik (Lewis), everyone on the bench, everybody uplifts me.

“Guys were dapping me up saying ‘Good job, good minutes’ … I’m really blessed to be here and have these teammates surrounding me.”

At six-foot-five, Gebeyehu’s not quite tall enough to handle most bigs and needs to get faster to defend perimeter guys. But on Friday, you could see the game slow down for him as he settled in.

He scored a few key buckets on pick-and-rolls, and one terrific back cut on a feed from Magnusson late in the third quarter.

Magnusson came from Gimli in 2020 as raw as any recent Bobcat recruit. The six-foot-eight, 280-pound forward offered much-needed size but not much else.

He has developed a useful three-point shot to stretch the floor and improved his defensive positioning a ton.

He went 3-for-6 from three on Friday and posted four rebounds and three steals to help the BU’s cause.

“We both started on Day 1 together and we’ve both come a long way since we’ve been here. To see everything finally start to come together a little bit, it’s awesome to see,” Magnusson said, adding the increased minutes due to a handful of teammates unable to fly back to Manitoba in time for the tournament took time to adjust to.

“I didn’t get in the gym as much as I wanted to and now just in the swing of things, now feeling a little bit better. In high school, everybody plays a lot so you just got to think back to (it), you know you’re able to do it, you just got to perform.”

Jalen Edwards lit the Bobcats up in the first quarter with 11 points as Regina led 27-19. BU forward Sultan Bhatti took an elbow to his face early and did not return. Cheung didn’t believe his swollen nose was broken and said holding him out was “precautionary.”

Carter Millar led the Cougars on a 15-0 run from late in the first until two minutes into the second to pull ahead 36-19.

Brandon replied with a quick 9-0 stretch and stayed hot from there as Eli Ampofo and Jahmaal Gardner hit double-digit points in the half. The Bobcats outscored the Cougars 26-8 in the last seven minutes to sneak ahead 45-44.

A few careless turnovers by both sides — but especially Regina — led to easy buckets in a back-and-forth third quarter. Khari Ojeda-Harvey and Ampofo came up with a few steals each, two leading to back-to-back transition dunks to lead 59-54 midway through the frame.

Regina clawed back to within one, then Magnusson flipped a smooth backdoor pass to Gebeyehu for a layup to put BU up 65-62 after three.

Brandon stepped up defensively to bring it home.

Silas Owusu-Acheaw picked Isaiah Bay’s pocket and rumbled to the other end, dishing to Gardner for a layup to put BU up 76-66.

Gardner had a game-high 23 points while Ampofo added 21 and was named a tournament all-star. Ojeda-Harvey chipped in 17 points, nine rebounds and eight assists.

Magnusson capped his night with back-to-back triples, one a deep bank to seal the victory.

“Everybody wants me to go out there and they know I can play,” Magnusson said. “… I put in the work in the off-season to come out there and do that so it’s nice to see it come to fruition a little bit.”

“Every time coach called my name I got a little giddy, once I got on the court I just shut everything off,” Gebeyehu added. “The crowd didn’t affect me or anything like that, my boys in the stands didn’t affect me, I was just focused on my craft, focused on getting better and helping my team win.”

FREE THROWS: Alberta dropped Laval 100-75 in the fifth-place game … Manitoba downed Algoma 97-71 for seventh … ……… won the dunk contest.

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