The University of Toronto Varsity Blues men's basketball team fell to the No. 1 Queen's Gaels 95-90 in their OUA Semifinal game on Wednesday (Feb. 28) in Kingston, Ont. 

With the loss, Toronto will await the committee's decision on Sunday, March 3 to see if they'll qualify for the U SPORTS Final 8 through the at-large berth. The competition would see the Blues travel to Quebec City, Que, and would mark the team's first National Championship appearance since the 1996-97 season.
 
The Blues started the game dominantly, coming out with an early 6-0 lead. As frustrations rose so did tensions with the Blues and Gaels exchanging foul-for-foul culminating in 13 fouls by the end of the quarter. Despite this, the Blues held their lead throughout the opening 10 minutes of play finishing the quarter up 18-17.
 
Aided by their dominant work in the paint, the Gaels managed to battle back to a 32-26 lead by midway through the second quarter. In all, Queen's would score 16 of their 23 second-quarter points in the key. With the advantage on the boards tipped in the Blues favour, Toronto made the most of their work under the net and tied things up at 34-34 with 3:34 left in the quarter. Although the teams would tie three more times through the rest of the quarter, the Gaels would end the half with a 40-38 lead.
 
A back-and-forth third quarter continued to demonstrate the parity between the two sides. Virtually tied in every statistical category, Toronto found their edge at the free throw line, shooting four-for-five from the charity stripe. The Blues outscored the Gaels 18-16 and tied things up at 56-56 as they headed into the fourth quarter.
 
With two seconds remaining in regulation, the Gaels lead the Blues 71-69. Following a free throw miss from Blues second-year guard, Noah Ngamba, a botched Queen's rebound gave the Blues the inbound opportunity with one second remaining. Blues standout guard Callum Baker found Ngamba at the baseline to even things up at 71-71 and send the game into overtime.
 
While the first five minutes of overtime play couldn't split the two sides, ending 81-81, the second did. Up two with 0:33 remaining, the Gaels scored five unanswered points to ultimately win the game 95-90.
 
The Blues offence was led by Ngamba who tallied 30 points, seven assists and six rebounds. Toronto's fifth-year guard Dane Quest impressed in his final game as a Blue recording 24 points and seven rebounds, while Callum Baker rounded out the Blues double-digit scorers with 15 points and seven assists.
 
On the boards, fourth-year Anthony Daudu led the Blues with 10 rebounds.
 
The Gaels were led by fifth-year guard, Luka Syllas. The Kingston, Ont. native led all players with 39 points and added seven assists.