The #1 team in the nation for most of the season was upset by a talented Brock squad
A loss in the OUA quarterfinals was certainly not the way anyone around the Gee-Gees men’s basketball team envisioned their season-ending. But that might just be the way it goes after the Brock Badgers came into Montpetit and held the U SPORTS #3 Gees to just 58 points while dropping 81 of their own.
The loss doesn’t automatically mean the Gees’s season is over, however. Each year, U SPORTS awards one berth at the Final 8 tournament to one ‘at-large’ team — i.e., a team which didn’t qualify for the tournament that the selection committee determines deserves to be, using a set of predefined criteria.
The game was tight throughout the first half, and the Gees took a seven-point lead into halftime. But the rest of the way, it was all Badgers. The Gees would manage just 13 points in the second half, while the Badgers remained consistent, scoring 43.
Dragan Stajic, the Gee’s point guard, pulled a lot of weight offensively for the team. The fourth-year Waterloo native racked up a team-high 17 points and six rebounds while adding six of the team’s 10 assists and six of the team’s 11 steals.
But beyond Stajic, the offence’s well had seemingly run dry. Fifth-year point guard Kevin Otoo could not put up a single point and attempted just two field goals — both three-pointers. Overall, the three-point shooting was fine, as they shot 7-of-24 collectively, with two makes coming from Stajic, three from Justin Ndjock-Tadjore, and one each from Jacques-Melaine Guemeta and Khalifa Koulamallah.
With the Gees still in reach of the lead midway through the fourth quarter, both Stajic and Ndjock-Tadjore would draw and-ones, but each would miss the free throw. The team shot just 5-of-9 from the charity stripe on the evening.
The Badgers, along with shooting 11-of-25 from beyond the arc, were dominating the glass. They pulled in 41 rebounds, dwarfing the Gees’ 23. 15 of the Badgers’ rebounds were from fourth-year forward Jordan Tchuente, who racked up 17 in the team’s last meeting. The 6’6” Tchuente was drafted in the second round of the Canadian Elite Basketball League’s U SPORTS Draft in 2023.
Now, the Gee’s will wait for the U SPORTS selection committee to choose the at-large team. Going by the criteria, it seems likely that as long as Queen’s and Victoria earn their berth in the tournament, the Gee-Gees hold the best odds at being selected.
