Preview to Basketball Semi-Finals: Axemen vs StFX

HALIFAX, N.S. - The Acadia Axemen basketball team heads into the AUS championship weekend at the Halifax Metro Centre as the number one seeded team after a 15-5 regular season record and first place in the AUS standings.

Acadia was a CIS Top Ten ranked team for most of the regular season, but were dropped off the rankings this week after a loss to the Dalhousie Tigers in a meaningless last game of the regular season.
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But the Axemen were rewarded Thursday night with several AUS major awards and All-star recognition at the annual AUS men's basketball banquet.

Fifth year forward Owen Klassen was named as the AUS Most Valuable Player and Defensive Player of the Year.

Klassen finished second in the Atlantic conference and seventh in the CIS in scoring this season with an average of 20.0 points per game. He also led the AUS in rebounds, averaging 10.6 per game. His 56.1 field goal percentage was good for third best in the conference.

Klassen wraps up his AUS career with 1,473 total points, the third most career points of any Acadia Axemen player on record. Former Axemen standouts Ted Upshaw (with 1,563) and Don Ehler (with 1,537) are first and second in the Acadia records for career points scored. Note: AUS career totals are for regular season games only

This is Klassen's third consecutive year being named an AUS first team all-star.

Also recognized was head coach Stephen Baur. Baur was named the AUS Coach of the Year - the first time in his six year career.

Graduating veterans Anthony Sears and Anthony Ashe were honoured as AUS All-Stars while first year forward Gianmarco Luciani was named to the AUS All-Rookie Team.

The Axemen will face the StFX X-men in the first of two semi-final games scheduled for tonight. StFX pulled off a come-from-behind win against UNB.  This past regular season, the X-men and Axemen faced each other twice for two four-point games. Acadia picked up an 89-76 win at home and the pulled off a final seconds 74-73 win in Antigonish two weeks ago.

Acadia finished third in the conference in points per game, while StFX finished fifth. The X-men posted a 10 steals per game average - third overall in the AUS behind UPEI and Saint Mary's. While the Axemen had the second most turnovers per game, thye led the conference in three important statistics - rebounds per game, field goal percentage and three point shots made per game.

Coach Baur was asked what his thoughts were on meeting StFX. "StFX has emerged as the year carried on and they are a young team. You can see they have got better each and every week. We feel confident going into this weekends game. We have some experience and realize that there is great parity in the league and everyone has had a chance to beat other teams, so we are aware that we will have to play our best going into the weekend".

Graduating this year, Owen Klassen will be playing in what could potentially be his last game of his esteemed career at Acadia and feels good about the coming weekend's semi-final game."It feels good to have the number one seed coming into the championship. We've never had the number one position while I have played at Acadia", adding. "We got the bye which is nice and I feel really comfortable in the way we are playing coming into the weekend".

The Axemen and StFX will face off at 6:00 pm tonight at the Halifax Metro Centre. The game is televised on EastLink and also available at www.austv.ca The championship game is scheduled for 2:00 pm on Sunday.