Sea Bears drop see-saw battle

The Winnipeg Sea Bears showed fight — a lot of it — but self-inflicted wounds eventually caught up with them.

Cameron Tyson delivered the knockout blow to the Sea Bears with a pair of free throws as the Brampton Honey Badgers escaped with a 96-92 victory at the CAA Centre in southern Ontario on Monday night.

Tyson was sent to the charity stripe after he picked Teddy Allen’s pocket and was fouled out of desperation on the ensuing fast break.

The theft was the last of 18 turnovers for the Sea Bears, who gave the high-powered Honey Badgers too many opportunities, especially in the first half.

“We had 12 of them at halftime, so I felt like we weren’t necessarily as prepared to take care of the ball early on in the game,” said head coach Mike Raimbault. “I thought we did a decent job of making some adjustments at halftime, and we found ourselves some easy buckets and moved it a bit from traffic and had a little bit more success, but sloppy with the ball early on.”

The Sea Bears dropped to 3-2 as they continue to navigate the often bumpy waters of a Canadian Elite Basketball League season. Both of their losses have come away from home.

The Honey Badgers kept their unblemished record intact as they improved to 4-0. It’s been quite the turnaround for the club under new head coach Alex Cerda, who took over a team that won five games last summer and six in 2024.

“We’ve got to put a complete game together if we want to be successful on the road,” Raimbault said. “There are a lot of possessions that we would’ve liked to do some things differently, and we’ve got to continue to clean those things up to play our best game.”

While the Sea Bears struggled with turnovers, they did demonstrate terrific resilience in a contest that featured 17 lead changes.

Winnipeg battled to a 27-27 tie after a fast-paced opening quarter before Brampton took a 53-45 lead into halftime. The Sea Bears roared back out of the locker room to take a 72-71 lead into the final quarter.

The Honey Badgers entered Target Score time with an 87-84 advantage.

Entering the night, Winnipeg had done a tremendous job of doing many of the little things right, including coughing up the ball 13 times per game — the third-fewest in the league.

But Brampton — which entered the night allowing a league-best 82.7 points per game — was the Sea Bears’ stiffest test yet, and they found out why that is, as the Honey Badgers’ defensive pressure was a handful to deal with all game. The hosts finished with 13 steals, including eight in the first half.

As was the case in their previous loss, Winnipeg struggled on the defensive glass, allowing 15 offensive rebounds while the Honey Badgers capitalized with 18 second-chance points to the Sea Bears’ four.

“I felt like today, we struggled on our second-chance effort,” said Jeremiah Tilmon Jr., who logged 18 points in 28:36 of playing time. “That’s what I was trying to tell people today. We would be playing a great defensive possession, and then they would miss their shot, and the same person who just shot it would get their rebound or somebody else would get it — and now we’re playing defence again. We gave up too many second-chance efforts.”

Winnipeg had its best success on offence playing through Tilmon Jr., who returned to the place where he spent two seasons and won a CEBL championship in 2022.

“I done put up a lot of buckets up in this gym. Humble,” he said. “I knew it was going to be a dog fight. I knew I was going to be trying to go out there and go hard and get this dub, just for the simple fact that I used to play here. But I knew they weren’t just going to let us come in and beat them, as well. I expected a dog fight, and they ended up getting the win, so hats off to them.”

Allen had moments in which it looked like he might will the Sea Bears to a victory, and finished with a game-high 25 points. Emmanuel Akot delivered his best performance of the season with 17 points and was a standout on defence while playing a game-high 36:01.

“It was a really good game. They’re well-coached and a really good team,” Akot said. “They have a lot of players on paper — one of the best rosters in the game. It was a really good challenge. If we want to win a championship, that’s a potential team we’re going to have to go through, obviously. I think it was good for us, and we’ll learn from it.”

Winnipeg had a hard time corralling reigning MVP runner-up Sean East II, who finished with 23 points and dished out seven assists.

The Honey Badgers were a problem from deep range, converting on 13 of 25 attempts (52 per cent). Tyson shone the brightest from beyond the arc, connecting seven times in a 23-point performance.

“It was certainly a factor,” said Raimbault. “Obviously, they did a good job of capitalizing when they had time and space. We would’ve liked to probably have a little bit higher level of contest on a number of them, so we’ve got to try to clean that up.”

That was the first of a season-long four-game road trip for the Sea Bears. Up next is a trip to visit the struggling Saskatoon Mamba (0-4) on Friday (8:30 p.m. CT).

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