OTTAWA — They had already waited all their lives, so what was another couple of games?
That was the thought running through the minds of the Brock Badgers as they started the run through the Canadian Interuniversity Sport Final 8 men's basketball tournament that culminated with their 64-61 win in the championship game at Scotiabank Place over the Acadia Axemen in front of 8,251 fans.
Coming into the weekend as the No. 7 seed, Brock proved its ranking was just a number when it upset the No. 2 University of British Columbia Thunderbirds in a close quarter-final game on Friday.
But there was no celebration then. Nothing more than a quiet, determined huddle at midcourt and a collective eye cast forward at the ultimate prize.
Brock University Badgers' Owen White, left to right, Brad Rootes, and Scott Murray hold up the W.P. McGee trophy after defeating the Acadia University Axemen 64-61 to win the 2008 CIS 'Final 8' men's basketball national championship. (Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press)
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Same thing when the Badgers knocked off the No. 6-ranked Western Ontario Mustangs in the semi-finals: some nods and high-fives, and then back to business.
But Sunday afternoon, when a team built on the shoulders of five graduating players from the Niagara region who grew up playing travel basketball together staked its claim as the best team in CIS basketball?
Bedlam. Tears. Hugs. The stuff that makes championships so sweet.
"We were waiting for this," said Brad Rootes, the Badgers' fifth-year star who was actively keeping the lid on his teammate's postgame excitement on Friday and Saturday, but led the postgame charge the moment the buzzer sounded on Sunday. "This makes every second, every sacrifice, worth it. You can't picture a better way to go out."
There was one quiet spot amidst the madness. Badgers head coach Ken Murray was in a tearful embrace with his son, Scott, a graduating senior who was 5 when Murray led Brock to the St. Catherines, Ont., school's only other CIS basketball title.
"It was an unreal moment," the younger Murray said.
Owen White of Port Hope, Ont. — the only member of Brock's rotation from outside the Niagara region — was named the tournament's most valuable player, but team effort and composure was the rule. It needed to be.
The Axemen were judged the favourites in many quarters for the simple fact they cut down the five-time defending champion Carleton Ravens in double-overtime the night before — in what many long-time CIS basketball watchers consider one of the best games in tournament history.
The Axemen might have made a sentimental winner if only because this was the first time the tournament was held in Ontario after a 24-year run in Halifax.
Acadia forced the undefeated Ravens into 33-per-cent shooting and stood tall as Carleton had the ball with the chance to win at the end of regulation and both overtime periods, urged on by a rabid crowd of 9,316 clad nearly entirely in Carleton's red and black.
That was hardly compensation for Acadia after the final, as its players stood in glum silence as Brock carried on.
"The goal is always the same," said Acadia's Leonel Saintil, an Ottawa resident who had been hoping for a magical homecoming. "The goal is to win a national championship. Whether you go through No. 1 or not, it doesn't mean very much if you don't reach the goal."
In the early going Sunday, Acadia picked up where they left off defensively against the Ravens, holding the shot-happy Badgers to 24 per cent from the floor in the first half as Acadia led 14-7 after the first quarter and 31-21 after the second.
But then the neighbourhood kids dug in.
Rootes finally scored his first basket midway through the third and finished the quarter with eight points, and Brock pulled back to tie the game heading into the fourth.
But much of the heavy lifting was done by Mike Kemp, as the Ontario University Athletics West defensive player of the year supplied the offensive punch against Acadia.
His sixth three-point shot of the game pulled Brock into a tie, 60-60 with 2 minutes 38 seconds to play.
Kemp eventually fouled out, but there was help at the ready from trusted hands in the form of Dusty Bianchin, a power forward who grew up around the corner from Kemp, and who stepped confidently into a pair of elbow jumpers in the game's final 1:48 second to put it out of Acadia's reach.
The Axemen turned the ball over when looking for a game-tying three-pointer in the final seconds. And Brock was finally free to celebrate among old, old friends.
"I've been watching these kids play since they were 12 years old," Ken Murray said. "They're the best in the country; I'm really, really proud of them. What a fitting way to end their careers."
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