Revitalized Sea Bears on a roll

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This article was published 03/07/2024 (809 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

In mid-June, the Winnipeg Sea Bears were in disarray, losers of four in a row and in need of a heart transplant for their poor defensive play.

What a difference a couple of weeks can make.

With GM and head coach Mike Taylor replacing his entire contingent of three imports on the fly, including the jettisoning of 2023 Canadian Elite Basketball League MVP Teddy Allen, the Sea Bears are playing faster and defending harder.

On Wednesday night, they won their fourth consecutive game, beating the extremely tough Edmonton Stingers 102-101 before 7,607 fans at Canada Life Centre.

Winnipeg has been revitalized since replacing Allen and Darius Days with guards Scottie Lindsey and Justin Wright-Foreman. On Wednesday, with Wright-Foreman scoring 34 points, Winnipeg marched out to 31-27, 57-48 and 80-67 quarter leads.

All that good work almost went for naught when the Stingers erased the 13-point deficit to take a 93-90 lead into Target Score Time.

“We just continue to show how tough (and) how gritty we are on both sides of the floor,” said Wright-Foreman, who added five rebounds and five assists. “We have very, very talented people in this locker room and everybody, each and every day, comes in and works hard.”

Wright-Foreman, who displays remarkable calm in pressure situations, was fouled twice and hit three free throws to clinch the win for the hosts.

“We’ve made a lot of progress in the last four games and we’ve kind of used the adversity to redefine ourselves,” said Taylor. “It’s really about the team. I’m really proud of the players… There were a lot of tough times and we were not defending and we had a lot of infighting for the four-game stretch. But we made some strong organizational decisions and we’ve got a team that’s really connected right now.”

Lindsey and David Muenkat added 15 points each for the winners, while Jarred Ogungbemi-Jackson and Alex Campbell chipped in with 12 points apiece.

“We made a couple of transactions and now we’ve got a couple of games with the same guys and the same group,” said Campbell, who became the first CEBL player to reach 200 made three-pointers in his career with four treys Wednesday. “As Justin said, we’ve got a resilient group and it shows every day in (Target Score Time). Our backs are against the wall, it doesn’t really matter the circumstance. We find a way to pull it out.”

How did the Sea Bears explain their fourth-quarter lapse?

“We just had mental lapses,” said Wright-Foreman. “I think that’s our Achilles heel. “Sometimes on the court… we don’t think, which is sometimes a good and a bad thing. We put ourselves in tough spots sometimes but as you can see, during (Target Score Time) all that goes out the window. That’s when the real not thinking happens and we just play.”

On Wednesday, NBA G League veteran big man Noah Starkey made an effective debut in place of recently departed Byron Mullens.

“He’s been really well coached,” said Taylor of Starkey. “You can see he plays his angles really well defensively and he uses his body really well… and again, we got a really good team effort today. It was a lot of guys that helped us.”

The Sea Bears improved to 7-5 while the Stingers, who entered the game with a league-best six road wins, fell to 9-4. Winnipeg is now 6-1 on home court.

Trey McGowens had 27 points to lead the visitors while Davion Warren added 16.

“We dug ourselves too deep a hole in the third quarter,” said Stingers GM and head coach Jordan Baker. “We played like hell just to get out of it. Credit to our guys for showing some character and no quit but we’ve gotta be tighter in the first 30 minutes to make it so we don’t have to battle back so much.”

Meanwhile, Winnipeg’s Western Conference rival in Saskatchewan turned up the heat for the stretch run. On Tuesday, the Rattlers signed Allen, which should add spice to the two remaining games between the teams over the final month of the regular season.

Winnipeg travels to Saskatoon for a Thursday, July 11, meeting while the Rattlers will return to Canada Life Centre for a match-up on Saturday, July 20.

Next up for Winnipeg is Friday’s road game against the Montreal Alliance at the Verdun Auditorium.

mike.sawatzky@freepress.mb.ca