Sea Bears clinch playoff spot with thrilling come-from-behind victory

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This article was published 23/07/2024 (772 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The Winnipeg Sea Bears are headed to the Canadian Elite Basketball League playoffs for the second year in a row.

Winnipeg’s pro hoops squad has been one of the most entertaining teams to watch this season owing to a strong offence — averaging a fourth-best 91.9 points per game — and a league-worst defence (conceding 96 points per outing), and both were on full display Tuesday night.

A franchise-record 11,051 fans were treated to yet another track meet in the Sea Bears’ high-stakes regular season home finale at Canada Life Centre as they watched their club down the Calgary Surge 111-104 in an absolute thriller.

Hometown product Jarred Ogungbemi-Jackson sealed the deal in Target Score Time, hitting a free throw to complete a wild second-half comeback for the Sea Bears.

“I love it. I’m so proud of these guys,” said Sea Bears head coach Mike Taylor. “There’s been a lot of changes and they kept working. They really got themselves together in a short time.

“We’ve been through some ups and downs, (and) it’s different if you back your way into the playoffs with another team losing, but when you win it, you earn it, and we’ve earned it.”

Winnipeg improved to 9-9 on the season and currently occupy the fourth seed in the Western Conference playoff picture. The Sea Bears own one of the best home records in the CEBL at 8-2 on the season.

Meanwhile, the loss snapped a four-game win streak for the Surge, who are the third seed at 10-8.

Despite both clubs being guaranteed a spot in the post-season, there is still plenty to play for with two games remaining in their respective schedules. Just one game separates Winnipeg and Calgary, who will now jockey for the third seed — a significant outcome as the higher-seeded club will host the 3 vs. 4 play-in game on Aug. 2.

This makes their next game, a rematch in Calgary on Thursday (8 p.m. CT), critical.

“That would mean everything,” said Scottie Lindsey, who contributed 16 points on the night, about hosting a playoff game. “I mean, you saw the environment today. I think that played a part in our win, just the fans being engaged, pumping us up in the moments that we’re making our run. We would love to have a home here in the playoffs.”

Justin Wright-Foreman fell just short of a double-double while leading the Sea Bears offence, registering a game-high 24 points and adding nine assists. The hosts had five players reach double digits in points on a night the offence fired at a 54 per cent clip, including Ogungbemi-Jackson, who chipped in with 17 points off the bench.

To say the Sea Bears earned this one would be a massive understatement.

The Surge held leads of 33-29; 64-51; and 87-82 at the end of the first three quarters and did so while shooting 61 per cent from the field.

Trying to overcome a double-digit deficit out of the break, the Sea Bears offence caught fire once again and closed the gap early in the fourth quarter. They took the lead with 5:06 remaining in the fourth quarter and entered Target Score Time with a 102-96 advantage.

“Honestly, I felt like it’s kind of the identity of our team,” Ogungbemi-Jackson said of the Sea Bears comeback. “If you look at a lot of games that we won at home (earlier) this season, we were down 10 or down 12 going into target time so this is nothing new to us.

“Not to say that we always want to come from behind to win games, but we show a lot of fight and It think we’ve shown a lot of character over the course of the season, especially in games like this.

“It felt like there was no panic. You could just see that we were kind of poised and that’s what we’re going to need going into the playoffs.”

While protecting their own rim continues to be a sore point for the Sea Bears, the offence showed once again Tuesday it can keep the team in ball games.

The players and coach Taylor acknowledged their defensive structure will need to be improved if it has designs of winning come playoff time.

“We have got to do a better job one-on-one guarding the ball,” said Taylor, who emphasized being “on time” to his players at halftime. “There was not enough physicality or ball pressure to direct the ball and… we were late on all our close-outs and this led to the fouls in the first half.

“We’ve got to do this on the road Thursday night, so that a big thing. Our defensive effort will be the main focus.”

After their bout with the Surge on Thursday, the Sea Bears will stay on the road to wrap up their regular season against the Edmonton Stingers on Monday, July 29.

joshua.frey-sam@freepress.mb.ca

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