The Gee-Gees will open the tournament on Friday with a 1 p.m. game against UQAM
The Gee-Gees men’s basketball team said goodbye to their home-crowd and their OUA Wilson Cup dreams after being upset by the Brock Badgers on Feb. 24. But, maybe Shinedown lead singer Brent Smith had it right when he wailed “sometimes goodbye is a second chance” in the group’s hit song from 2008.
The Gees were awarded the tournament’s lone at-large berth by the tournament seeding committee, thanks to their dominant regular season. The Gee-Gees held the number-one spot in the U SPORTS national rankings for the majority of the year, and closed out the regular season with a third-place finish.
Despite losing in the quarterfinals, their pedigree proved enough to allow the Gees to claim the second-chance berth in the 2024 U SPORTS Men’s Final 8 Championship. The single knock-out tournament is conducted in a similar fashion to the National Collegiate Athletic Association’s (NCAA) March Madness, albeit with just eight teams as the title alludes to.
The Gee-Gees will join the Wilson Cup champion Queen’s Gaels, along with the Wilson Cup finalist Brock Badgers this weekend in Quebec City as the OUA’s contestants. The Canada West champion Victoria Vikes secured the top seed and will be joined at the tournament by the Canada West finalist Winnipeg Wesman.
Rounding out the field are the Atlantic University Sport champion Dalhousie Tigers, the host Laval Rouge et Or, and the RSEQ champion Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM) Citadins. The Gee-Gees and Citadins will open the tournament at 1 p.m. on Friday. All games will be played at the Amphithéâtre Desjardins, located on Laval’s campus.
| Seed | Team | Entering as: | Regular Season Record | Playoff Record |
| 1 | Victoria Vikes | CW Champions | 17-3 | 3-0 |
| 2 | Queen’s Gaels | OUA champions | 19-3 | 3-0 |
| 3 | UQAM Citadins | RSEQ champions | 11-5 | 2-0 |
| 4 | Dalhousie Tigers | AUS Champions | 11-9 | 2-0 |
| 5 | Brock Badgers | OUA finalists | 11-11 | 3-1 |
| 6 | Ottawa Gee-Gees | At-large berth | 19-3 | 0-1 |
| 7 | Winnipeg Wesmen | CW finalists | 15-5 | 2-1 |
| 8 | Laval Rouge et Or | hosts | 6-10 | 0-1 |
The Citadins are coming off of capturing an RSEQ championship for the second season in a row and the fourth time overall, with the first coming in 2006 and the second in 2010. At 2023’s Final 8, the Citadins lost to the eventual champion Carleton Ravens in the opening round, before defeating Winnipeg and Queen’s to earn a fifth-place finish.
Three former Gee-Gees and Montreal natives have transferred to their home city, including Citadins leading scorer Kevin Civil. Civil, a 6’0” point guard, played 51 games for the Gees from 2018 to 2022, starting six, and averaging 12 points per game in his final season with the team. The other former Gees joining Civil in Montreal are third-year forward Elie Karojo and third-year guard Quincy Louis-Jeune.
The Ravens went on to knock out the Gee-Gees in the second round, before taking down the St. FX X-Men in the national championship. The Gees would wind up with hardware of their own, thanks to a win against the Victoria Vikes in the bronze medal game.
Eight players who saw action in that bronze medal game will return this year, including three starters, namely Dragan Stajic, Kevin Otoo, and Cole Newton. Jacques-Melaine Guemeta, Brock Newton, Sam Playter, Steven Angenent, and Liban Abdalla saw action off the bench.
The core remains and has been emboldened by the additions of forward Justin Ndjock-Tadjore and guard Khalifa Koulamallah, who averaged 14.2 and 10.3 points per game respectively during the regular season.
But with three losses in their last four games, the Gees saw their OUA season end in an underwhelming fashion. Two of their losses came to fellow Final 8 participants, namely, Brock and Queen’s — the latter of whom the Gees have yet to win against this season in two attempts.
Even so, college basketball fans understand anything can happen in single-game elimination tournaments, and any speculation on tournament results based on previous matchups, season statistics, and national rankings are not worth the paper they are written on — at least, that is true now that the Carleton Ravens’ dynasty has taken a year-long hiatus from the tournament.
| TALE OF THE TAPE | Ottawa | UQAM |
| National Ranking (Feb. 20) | 3 | N/R |
| Season Record | 19-3 | 11-5 |
| Win Streak | L1 | W2 |
| Points per Game | 79.5 | 78.4 |
| Average Margin of Victory | 12.5 | 8.1 |
| Leading Scorer (PTS/G) | Brock Newton (17.0) | Kevin Civil (13.1) |
| Field Goal Percentage | 44.5 | 42.7 |
| Three Point Percentage | 26.9 | 32.3 |
| Rebounds per Game | 36.6 | 33.6 |
| Offensive Rebounds per Game | 9.6 | 9.3 |
| All-Time Final 8 Record | 18-16 | 1-5 |
Following a mind-blowing streak in which the Ravens won 10-of-11 national championships in a row — and 17-of-20 dating back to 2003 — the epitome of U SPORTS excellence limped to a 13-9 record during the OUA’s regular season. They would then bow out to Brock in the first round of the Wilson Cup playoffs, meaning they will miss the men’s basketball championship for the first time since 2002.
Without Carleton, the Final 8 tournament will have a much different look, and a much more wide-open field, as Gees head coach James Derouin alluded to during an interview with TSN 1200 on Wednesday.
The McGee trophy will be awarded following the Gold Final at 6 p.m. on Sunday, and all games will be webcasted on CBC Sports.
