The U of T men’s basketball team lost a nail-biter in the Sports Gym Friday night to division rival Ottawa, 72-71.

Both teams are fighting for a spot in this year’s OUA playoffs. It went down to the wire as Ottawa squeaked through with the one-point win in overtime.

The following night the Varsity Blues stunned the CIS #2 Carleton Ravens, 77-70, with their most inspiring performance of the season to improve to 7-10, two points behind fourth place Laurentian (8-9) for the final playoff spot in the East.

Heading into Friday’s game, the Blues were ahead of the Ottawa Gee Gees by one game in the East division.

“It’s really frustrating, because the game was totally winnable,” said Tom Grochmal, who led the Blues in scoring with 19 points. “A win tonight would have clinched us a playoff spot, which makes it more difficult.”

Both teams squandered significant leads throughout the game, leading to the exciting overtime frame.

In the first half, the Blues took a commanding 26-18 lead before the Gee Gees tied the game with the 13 first half points of Jeff Dallin, their top scorer, who led all players with 20 points.

With 10:22 remaining in the second half, Ottawa opened up a nine-point lead just to watch it disappear as Kenny Hillborn came alive with a clutch three-point shot to pull Toronto within three.

He later made two important free throws to tie the game with little over a minute left.

“It was a close game, but we weren’t solid on defense tonight,” said Hillborn, who finished the game with 13 points and seven rebounds.

The difference in the game, particularly in overtime, was Ottawa’s ability to hit big shots, as their field-goal percentage of 66.7 indicates.

“We should have got out more often on the shooters,” said Grochmal, who agreed that defensive lapses cost the Blues their seventh win of the season.

Toronto’s coach Ken Olynyk said his team had mental lapses during the game.

“We didn’t execute when we had to, defensively and offensively…we have to change that.”

The dying moments of overtime were marred by a controversial travelling call against the Blues, which turned the ball over and led to Ottawa’s game-winning basket with seconds remaining.

“I didn’t like the calls because they weren’t consistent,” said Olynyk, who complained that the officials missed some key calls against the Gee Gees.

Friday night’s loss brought the men’s record to 6-10, dropping them into a tie with Ottawa in the division standings.