Sea Bears overpower winless Surge

Trey McGowens packed the stat sheet in a stellar two-way performance punctuated by 19 points, as the Winnipeg Sea Bears cruised to a 107-88 victory over the Calgary Surge at the WinSport Event Centre in Alberta on Sunday.

It was the second victory in three days for the Sea Bears, who defeated the Surge 92-72 at home on Friday.

The Sea Bears were searching for consistency away from home, owning a 2-4 record on the road entering the contest. The club has been competitive in every game, but has struggled to put together a complete performance in unfavourable environments.

They answered the bell for 40 minutes with one of their most well-rounded outings of the 2026 Canadian Elite Basketball League season.

“Huge. All our losses are on the road,” said McGowens who also had seven rebounds, five assists and four steals in 28:38 of action.

“Just locking in. We played a complete game, which was something (head coach Mike Raimbault) has been emphasizing the past couple of weeks, especially on the road, is just weathering storms and handling adversity. We didn’t go up against too much adversity today, but when we did, and they made their runs, we didn’t allow it to linger.”

It’s the fourth time the Sea Bears have eclipsed the century mark, which already ties the single-season franchise record set in 2024. Last summer, the club failed to score 100 points in any game.

While the Sea Bears have had the constant scoring of Teddy Allen (game-high 27 points) all season, they have had the luxury of relying on a number of players to provide secondary scoring on any given night.

It was newcomer Isiah Osborne who stepped up in Friday’s victory, and McGowens was the latest example of a club that is playing with loads of confidence offensively.

“It’s something coach has been trying to get me to focus on, is getting everybody else first. He trusts me and believes that when that happens, my game can get going kind of whenever I want, depending on the game,” said McGowens.

“It was really big. Ted (Allen) got going early, Zay (Osborne) got going early, and then we got Til (Jeremiah Tilmon Jr.) touches. I know that’s something we had struggled with, especially on the road, is getting him touches early. I feel like we did that, and it just opened up for everyone else.”

The Sea Bears, who improved to 6-4, are two games above .500 for the first time since opening the season 2-0. Meanwhile, the Surge are now winless through nine games.

The CEBL record for the worst start to a season is owned by the defunct Newfoundland Growlers, who started 0-10 in 2022. The Surge are in danger of matching that when they host the Eastern Conference-leading Brampton Honey Badgers on Wednesday.

“(McGowens) was great,” Raimbault said. “I know at half-time he was plus-22, so I thought he was effective at both ends of the floor. I thought he was at the point of attack in terms of ball pressure and disruptivity, and it carried over into us getting stops and pushing the ball in transition.”

Winnipeg held leads of 24-22, 52-52 and 78-65 after each of the first three quarters, respectively, and took a healthy 96-77 advantage into Target Score time.

Osborne scored the game-winning bucket for the second game in a row.

It’s the fifth time the Sea Bears have held an opponent under 90 points this season, a testament to Raimbault’s commitment to defence. After Sunday’s result, Winnipeg is allowing 88.6 points per contest — the second-fewest in the CEBL.

“I think it was one of our better complete efforts start to finish,” said Raimbault.

“I thought it was a total team effort. The majority of our success starts on the defensive end. They were tremendous in the first five minutes of the game, and I thought we did a good job of adjusting to the pace of the game.”

Tilmon Jr. chipped in with 26 points and a game-high nine rebounds, while Armani Chaney led the charge off the bench with 10 points.

The Sea Bears’ newest addition, DJ Burns, who signed on Thursday, made his debut. Burns, who travelled instead of fellow import Trevon Scott, hasn’t officially practised with the team yet, but found six points and three rebounds in 13:29 of court time.

Sean Miller-Moore led the Surge with 20 points, and for the second straight game, Winnipeg stymied the often-dangerous Evan Gilyard II, who could only muster 13 points.

After being tasked to play seven of its first 10 games on the road, Winnipeg will now enjoy the comfort of home five times in the next seven games.

Up next is a barometer test against the Western Conference leading Vancouver Bandits (7-2), who added even more firepower to their lineup on Sunday with the signing of reigning MVP Mitch Creek. That game goes Thursday at Canada Life Centre (7 p.m.).

“Huge, huge, huge,” said McGowens. “We like to believe that we have one of the best home crowds in the CEBL. It’s really nice just to be there at home. We definitely used them last game… just give them energy play and they’ll kind of feed on it and just keep it going.”

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