‘Definitely a tough one’: Travel delays drag down Sea Bears in 114-90 loss to Vancouver Bandits

The Winnipeg Sea Bears will head into the playoffs on a disheartening note.

Winnipeg’s pro hoops squad had hoped to ride a wave of confidence into the Canadian Elite Basketball League post-season on the strength of locking up the top seed in the Western Conference.

Instead, the Sea Bears ended the regular season after being handed their worst defeat of the season, a 114-90 rout at the hands of the Vancouver Bandits at the Langley Events Centre in British Columbia on Sunday.

“Definitely a tough one, but we got a home game coming next week. Just get ready for that,” said Simon Hildebrandt, who was the only member of the Sea Bears available for a post-game interview.

With the win, the Bandits locked up the top spot in the Western Conference for the third year in a row and will have home court advantage through the first two rounds of the playoffs.

The Sea Bears were fighting an uphill battle in this one before they even took the court. This highly anticipated matchup was delayed 90 minutes due to the club’s travel issues.

Winnipeg was supposed to fly into British Columbia on Saturday, but wound up being stuck in Alberta overnight.

Bad weather delayed the club’s connecting flight in Edmonton, and the Sea Bears were later re-routed to Calgary. After a night’s rest, the team then flew back to Edmonton and arrived in Abbotsford, B.C. on Sunday morning before driving to Langley — a whirlwind of travel that was less than ideal before their biggest game of the season.

“It definitely wasn’t ideal, but at the end of the day, we gotta find a way to battle through adversity and play better on the floor,” Hildebrandt said.

It was clear that the Sea Bears were affected by the travel delays.

The visitors looked out of sorts from the opening tip as Vancouver jumped out to a 17-2 lead and never looked back, holding leads of 29-12, 54-33 and 78-58 after the first three quarters, and owning a 105-74 advantage entering Target Score Time.

A slow start was a kiss of death for the Sea Bears, who were facing a dangerous Bandits squad that welcomed Mitch Creek back to the lineup for the pivotal regular-season finale. Creek, the CEBL’s reigning MVP who has missed most of the season while serving for the Australian national team, needed to suit up on Sunday to reach the CEBL’s minimum of three games played to be eligible for the playoffs.

As expected, the Aussie’s presence was a huge boon for the Bandits.

Creek packed the stat sheet, pouring in 28 points and adding six rebounds, six assists and four steals, and capping his second comeback of the summer by connecting on a pair of game-winning free throws to put the Sea Bears out other misery.

Emmanuel Akot paced Winnipeg’s scoring with 20 points off the bench. Xavier Moon and Teddy Allen had 15 and 14 points, respectively. Nothing on the offensive end was pretty on this day, however, as the club connected on just 37 per cent of its shots while turning the ball over 14 times.

While the Sea Bears struggled to consistently find the bottom of the bucket, the Bandits had just about anything they wanted on the offensive end.

Vancouver’s high-pace play style was a perpetual problem for Winnipeg, which was often caught down a man in transition and late to pick up on many of its defensive keys.

Bandits guard Mychal Moulder was the star of the show, scoring a game-high 29 points on a world-class 91 per cent efficiency.

Moulder, who never attempted a free throw in the contest, was a perfect 10-for-10 from the field and seven-for-seven from three-point range before missing his first and only shot of the day with 5:28 remaining in the fourth quarter.

“It’s tough,” said Hildebrandt. “Maybe we can make some adjustments on defence to try and slow them down a bit, I would say. We can find a way to be better.”

The Sea Bears will need to shake this one off as they prepare to host the Saskatoon Mamba in the single-game elimination Western Conference semi-finals at Canada Life Centre on Thursday.

Winnipeg’s 14 wins this season were the most in franchise history, and the club will hope for a little more history when it looks to win the first playoff game in franchise history.

“Short memory,” Hildebrandt said. “We got a big home game, we got a great home crowd — just be ready and focused on that one.”

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