‘It wasn’t meant to be’

They were given a free spot in the final four and had 9,082 supporters on their side, but it still wasn’t enough to get the Winnipeg Sea Bears to the CEBL final.

Despite the generous hand they were dealt, Friday night at the Canada Life Centre was poised to be an uphill battle for the Sea Bears who had to find a way to get past the Calgary Surge and their star-studded cast in the Western Conference title game. Calgary proved to be too much to handle and ran away with a 90-79 win to punch its ticket to championship Sunday.

They’ll meet the Niagara River Lions (6 p.m. tip-off) who took down the Scarborough Shooting Stars 93-91 earlier in the evening to claim the Eastern Conference crown.

“Man, we tried hard. It wasn’t meant to be for us,” said Sea Bears head coach and general manager Mike Taylor.

“We were happy with where we were at halftime being down six. We knew there would be a little bit of rust not playing for a couple of weeks, but I felt like we were right where we needed to be. The effort was great.”

The Surge, the No. 2 seed in the West after going 17-7, took a convincing 68-52 advantage into the fourth quarter after point guard Evan Gilyard II sunk a deep three before the buzzer. Calgary forward Olumide Adelodun continued the onslaught with back-to-back-to-back threes within the opening minutes of the final quarter to go up 21. Winnipeg went down swinging, though, as it managed to cut the deficit to 83-75 in Target Score Time when forward Emmanuel Akot hit a corner three — with 90 being the winning number — before Calgary shut the door.

Surge guard Sean Miller-Moore — a finalist for Canadian Player of the Year — ended up waving goodbye to the crowd after driving past Sea Bears forward Trevon Scott to lay in the game-winner.

The Sea Bears’ chances took a huge hit when guard Jalen Harris left the game a minute in the second quarter with a back spasm and didn’t sub back in until four minutes remained in the third. He toughed it out for a bit before the plug was pulled on his night early in the fourth. Harris — who averaged 19.2 points and 34.2 minutes per game in the regular season — had eight points in 16 minutes.

The Sea Bears were already banged up at the guard spot with Terry Roberts suffering an ankle injury at Monday’s practice and not dressing. Fellow import guard Jarron Cumberland, who had only played four games after signing on July 25, was forced to play 25 minutes and shot three-for-nine for nine points.

Centre Simi Shittu picked a bad time to have an off night for the Sea Bears on the offensive end as he was held in check for 13 points on four-of-17 shooting.

“A lot of our offence is based around Jalen Harris. We relied on him throughout the summer to get buckets, to run plays through him,” said Taylor.

“When the team needed something, we’d either go to Simi or him. Simi had a rough game, he gave great effort, but was not efficient… (We) gave great effort, but again, you could see we missed Jalen’s offensive efficiency in that second half.”

The Sea Bears finished the regular season 11-13 for fourth place in the West but were guaranteed to play Friday as the hosts of championship weekend. They hadn’t played since Aug. 10, meanwhile Calgary had to outlast both Vancouver (105-103) and Edmonton (103-95) in the past eight days.

“We felt like we didn’t play the way we should have. Our energy wasn’t there, especially in the first quarter, you saw that,” said Scott, who led Winnipeg with 18 points.

“I give credit to the coaching staff for having us prepared to play the game, but it was on us. And then we lost Jalen, our best scorer, and that kind of hurt us, but I mean, we still put ourselves in position. They came out and made some big shots, credit to them, they’ve been playing the way they’ve been playing all summer. We just didn’t get the job done.”

Akot, who rejoined the Sea Bears Thursday after being gone for three weeks to suit up for South Sudan at FIBA’s AfroBasket in Angola, got the start and had nine points, seven rebounds, and five assists.

Gilyard led the charge for the Surge with 24 points while Miller-Moore also impressed with 20.

The championship weekend host hasn’t won it all since the Edmonton Stingers did it in 2021.

The Sea Bears, now 3-9 all-time versus Calgary, are still searching for their first playoff win in franchise history.

taylor.allen@freepress.mb.ca