Gees outrebounded 59-36; force 24 Concordia turnovers; Stajic leaves with injury
It was a tale of two halves on Thursday at the Doug Mitchell Thunderbird Sports Centre during the second men’s quarterfinal between the one-seed University of Ottawa Gee-Gees and the eight-seed Concordia Stingers.
During the first, an early three from Dragan Stajic and back-to-back threes from Khalifa Koulamallah had helped propel the Gees to be up by as many as 18. The Gees entered the locker rooms at halftime with a 16-point lead over the Stingers. Concordia didn’t make a single three in the half.
But in the second, that narrative flipped. It was suddenly the Gee-Gees who couldn’t hit a shot, failing to record a three in the second half themselves. “I didn’t think we were playing particularly well at halftime, and so I was worried that a run was coming,” admitted Gees head coach James Derouin after the game.
Midway through the third quarter, a barrage of threes from Alec Phaneuf gave the Stingers their first lead of the evening. Phaneuf’s three makes from deep in the third were his only from deep of the game.
Junior Mercy (two) and Jaheem Joseph (one) also added threes in the frame, as the Stingers stunned the Gees with a 29-12 third quarter. Luckily for the Gees, that shooting dried up again in the fourth — for both teams, as neither team was able to hit from deep in the final quarter.
Some soft-touch elbow shots from Brock Newton gave the Gees the lead back. Newton added nine of his team-high 17 points in the fourth, capped off by a steal-and-slam with just seconds remaining in the game that put a punctuation mark on the game.
Newton was awarded Ottawa’s Player of the Game award after the game. “I think just prior experiences have prepared us for this moment,” said Newton, referencing the early lead Queen’s staked over the Gees during the OUA final, where the Gees entered the second half trailing by eight.
“It’s just all about, you know, settling the storm and going back to what we know … our defence has been an anchor, number one defence in the country,” said Newton, adding that holding Concordia off the offensive glass in the fourth was the key to victory.
Because to that point, the Stingers were running roughshod over the Gees backboard. Led by Yohan Leger and Gabriel Bourdages who grabbed five offensive boards in the game apiece, Concordia has almost as many offensive rebounds (22) as the Gees had defensive (29).
Newton said his mindset in the fourth was simple: “don’t lose.” The forward said “I wanted to do everything I could to win that game, I’ve been to nationals, and we don’t come here to play in a consolation bracket, we came to win.”
Derouin said that seeing the 2024 Second Team All-Canadian bounce into peak-Newton form like that was great to see. “That’s a Brock game,” added Derouin after talking about Newton’s floater, switches on defence, forced turnovers, and of course the showman dunk to conclude the game.
But despite the offensive boards giving Concordia those extra possessions, the Gees still managed 66 field goals to Concordia’s 74 and 28 free throws to Concordia’s 13 by winning the turnover battle by almost as large of a margin.
Led by Newton (four steals), Stajic (three steals), and Justin Ndjock Tadjore (two steals), the multi-faceted defensive powerhouse that are the Gee-Gees were all over Phaneuf (four turnovers) and Mercy (six turnovers).
“Turning the other team over is a huge part of our team identity,” said Derouin after the game. “Even when the game sort of got away from us there, it could have gone conservative and gone a different way, but the kids wanted to keep playing the way that we play and caused some really key turnovers that got us back in the game … that was huge.”
Stajic leaves with injury; look ahead to Victoria
With just over four minutes to play, a driving Jaheem Joseph caught Stajic up high inadvertently with his off-hand appearing to be hit Stajic’s face. Stajic would remain on the court for quite some time before being helped off the court.
His status for Friday’s semifinal against Victoria is unclear, but if held out would be a massive loss to the Gees. The Second Team All-Canadian finished with eight points, eight rebounds, four assists, and the three steals on 3-of-10 shooting including two makes from three.
The Gees last played Victoria in the 2023 bronze medal match, which they won 78-58. Stajic, Newton, Jacques-Mélaine Guemeta, and Steven Angenent are the only returnees from that game that saw the court two seasons ago.
“The knock on Victoria over the years is that you can be physical with them,” said Derouin when asked what the gameplan looks like on Friday, adding that Victoria “took a punch” from Bishop’s and played tough.
“I think Bishop’s came out with that kind of gameplan, but [Sam] Maillet and some of their guys that they’ve added, I thought just watching it, it felt like Maillet was like ‘no, not with me here,” he kind of put his physical presence on and was guarding the five,” said Derouin.
“They looked different … Bishop’s is a very, very good team, that’s a crazy first round matchup. We’ll be in tough against Victoria tomorrow,” said Derouin, adding that he’s looking forward to the matchup.
The game will tip off at 9 p.m. EST on Friday night. You can catch the action on CBC Sports or CBC Gem.
