Sea Bears focused on ironing out wrinkles for home-opener

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This article was published 23/05/2024 (859 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Jarred Ogungbemi-Jackson hasn’t played basketball in front of a hometown crowd in almost 10 years.

That will change Friday when the 32-year-old Winnipegger leads his hometown Sea Bears onto the court at Canada Life Centre for their home opener against the Canadian Elite Basketball League’s defending champion Scarborough Shooting Stars at 7:30 p.m.

Could the spectacle of playing in front of family and 9,116 of his newest friends — the game has been sold out for two weeks — be a distraction?

“I don’t think so,” said Garden City Collegiate grad Thursday afternoon.

“I mean, this is a once-in-a-lifetime kind of opportunity. I’ve been playing for almost a decade now professionally and once I get to the game, I get into game mode. Obviously, leading up to it there can be a lot of excitement and questions and nerves and stuff like that and family and friends who are wanting to come to see me play. But once I get on the court, I get on the court.”

Ogungbemi-Jackson’s businesslike approach should serve him well. The Sea Bears are still smarting after Wednesday’s season-opening 94-86 road loss to the Saskatchewan Rattlers, despite a 40-point performance from reigning league MVP Teddy Allen.

After some early foul trouble, Ogungbemi-Jackson finished the game with 12 points, seven assists, four rebounds and only two turnovers but Winnipeg never fully recovered from a 17-point deficit in the second quarter. The Sea Bears do not want to be chasing the lead again Friday.

“We have to work with what we have,” said Ogungbemi-Jackson.

“We have a great coaching staff that works extremely hard and is going to prepare us for Friday night and we have committed guys that want to do well. Of course nobody was happy with (Wednesday’s) performance, myself included. All the guys know we can play much better than we did. We’ve just got to build good habits.”

If the Sea Bears sometimes looked like strangers on the court Wednesday, it’s because many of them are still unfamiliar with their new teammates after a one-week training camp.

“If you’re comparing this to my experience overseas, most of our training camps lasted a month and a half, so you’d be reporting two months before the season would even start so you got a lot of time to get familiar with guys and play calls and living situation,” said Ogungbemi-Jackson.

“Whereas, this training camp is a lot different. You’ve really got one week to try to get all your terminologies and all your play style down with a lot of guys who don’t know each other. I think that’s normal and it’s not something to be overly concerned about. But the season goes by fast (in the CEBL) so we’ve got to make sure we’re making the right steps moving forward.”

Sea Bears GM and head coach Mike Taylor is confident his squad will iron out some of the rough patches.

“Anytime you come into a new system with new teammates, especially as a point guard, it takes some time,” said Taylor.

“So Jarred is learning the league. It was his first game in the CEBL. He’s doing a great job with our system. He’s really engaged and trying to organize things and it doesn’t come overnight — it takes some time. You’ve gotta work at it. We’re really happy with his defensive effort out there today and he had seven assists, only two turnovers, and four rebounds.”

Taylor was unhappy about his club’s reliance on the three-point shot in the loss to the Rattlers.

“It’s just a natural process of a team coming together, learning to play together and emphasizing the details of fundamental play,” said Taylor.

“We’ve got a really experienced and talented guys, so I think they’ll be able to pick up the concepts really fast. In terms of shots, we shot more threes than twos — we shot nine for 39 from three — and we settled too much for just perimeter shots, did not pressure the rim or play strong enough inside.”

Ogungbemi-Jackson believes the adjustments will come.

“That’s just a matter of being aggressive,” said Ogungbemi-Jackson.

“I think our play was a bit lackadaisical (Wednesday) and we weren’t as aggressive getting some easier looks at the rim. Based off our training camp, that was something that we preached about a lot — trying to be aggressive team. Don’t settle for threes and long, contested shots. We can improve that and I know we will.”

mike.sawatzky@freepress.mb.ca