Sea Bears fade down stretch

The Winnipeg Sea Bears stubbed their collective toe with a golden opportunity at hand on Thursday.

With a chance to seize control of the Canadian Elite Basketball League’s Western Conference, the Sea Bears met the moment for three quarters before shutting down in the final frame, dropping a 92-77 decision to the Vancouver Bandits before 6,747 in attendance at Canada Life Centre.

Winnipeg, which dropped to 13-6 — one game ahead of Vancouver (12-7) — still controls its fate to clinch home-court advantage throughout the conference playoffs with four games remaining in the regular season schedule, but would’ve increased its margin for error considerably with a win.

The clubs will face each other one last time in the regular season finale in Langley, B.C. on Aug. 2 — a matchup that could feature a winner-take-all scenario.

“We knew what was at stake. We know that if we want to be No. 1 in the West, we’re gonna have to go through them,” said Xavier Moon, who had 15 points and eight assists in 37:15 of action. “So I think we’ve got to be better offensively and defensively, and we’ll watch the film, and then we’ll get better, and obviously we’ll see them at the end of the year.”

The Sea Bears held leads of 29-21 and 51-47 in the first two quarters before the Bandits scrapped their way to a tie game after the third frame.

Vancouver outscored Winnipeg 22-7 in the fourth quarter.

“Obviously, the rhythm of the game wasn’t in our favour,” said head coach Mike Raimbault. “I thought they were more physical than us. We didn’t score a few times where we had opportunities to convert, and they punished us by coming down the floor. There’s a big one where we have a chance to make a layup — get a little bit of momentum — and we miss, and they hit a corner three. You know, they capitalized on all of the momentum turns that weren’t in our favour.”

The Sea Bears were dominated inside the paint and on the glass on this night. Vancouver out-rebounded Winnipeg 50-28 and outscored the hosts 62-34 inside the paint — a pair of telling stats for where things went wrong in this one.

Bandits centre James Karnik delivered a 17-point, 12-rebound double-double while forward Dominic Parolin hauled down another eight rebounds.

“They’re a really big team,” said Simon Hildebrandt, who supplied 14 points and four rebounds off the bench. “I think they did a really good job of forcing us to finish off one foot and to finish off balance, and maybe a little bit farther out than we wanted to instead of right at the rim with power. They’re a big team, and I do think they made us a little bit uncomfortable at the rim tonight.”

The story of the fourth quarter could be seen on the game-winning possession when Karnik outmuscled a pair of Sea Bears for the rebound and scored an easy put-back to ice the contest.

“We were in foul trouble in the first half, so that was definitely a factor in terms of them chipping away at the lead that we happened to build,” said Raimbault. “I mean, obviously they were more physical than us in a lot of portions of the game, so that was problematic for us.”

Teddy Allen led the Sea Bears with 26 points in 38:16 of playing time, while Jeremiah Tilmon Jr., who left the game in Target Score Time with an apparent eye injury, supplied 12 points.

Unlike the last time the Sea Bears and Bandits met, standout Canadian forward Tyrese Samuel was in the lineup for Thursday’s contest. There was speculation that reigning MVP forward Mitch Creek could make his return to the lineup for this one, but that proved not to be the case, maintaining what looked like a major hole in Vancouver’s lineup.

Five Bandits stepped up in the scoring department, supplying double digits in points. Guard Jarkel Joiner led the charge with 24 points, following up on his last outing against Winnipeg when he went off for 34 points in a win.

“Speedy guard, small,” Moon said. “They get him going downhill really well, and when he’s making shots, he’s really difficult to guard.”

The Sea Bears won’t have time to dwell on this missed opportunity. They are back in action for an important out-of-conference matchup against the Brampton Honey Badgers (9-10) at home on Saturday (2:30 p.m.).

“The response will be the same as if we had won,” Raimbault said. “We have a really short turnaround to our next game. We get to look at it tomorrow as a group, and I think there’s a lot of teachable things in possessions that we know we have to be better at if we’re going to be successful in the post-season. Tonight, we didn’t get the job done.”

The Sea Bears announced earlier on Thursday that post-season tickets for potential home games are now available to the general public.

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