Everything before this past Sunday said the Nation's fourth-ranked Concordia men's basketball team would be on a bus to Quebec City on Friday to play the Laval Rouge et Or in a rematch of last year's provincial championship. But, after beating Concordia 72-69 in Sunday's semi-final at Loyola Gym, that bus ride now belongs to the Bishop's Gaiters.
The match, easily one the biggest upsets in Canadian university sports this year, once again proved that the regular season means nothing. After all, the Stingers had won all four previous meetings with the Gaiters this season and only one of those was by less than 16 points.
No one would question Concordia's desire to win this game but the fact is Bishop's showed that they wanted it more. With solid defence, aggressive rebounding, and Bishop's forward Jeff Szita playing what must have been one of the most complete games of his university career, the Gaiter's looked in control of this game from the start of the second half.
"We're a team that showed up the whole year. Today we didn't show up," Co-Captain Dan Lacasse said after the game.
Early on in the game it was clear that Bishop's was not going to let Concordia coast into the conference finals. Although Concordia jumped out to a quick six-point lead, Ricardo Telamon would show his range by draining a three-pointer to tie the game 12-12. It wouldn't be the last time Telamon would make his presence felt.
The Stingers also got stuck in a drought where they had trouble finishing several open scoring chances and looked anemic from beyond the arc.
However, despite the early scoring struggles, the Maroon and Gold managed to recover and looked to be regaining control by taking advantage of a couple of quick Gaiter turnovers. The rally was highlighted when Stinger guard Chris Blackwood rushed the ball in from his own zone and made a sweet dish-off to centre Lacasse for an open dunk.
Leading 37-30 with just one minute remaining in the half, Concordia seemed primed to walk out of the half with a confident lead. Then Telamon happened.
With the score 37-32 and time running out in the half Telamon threw up a long prayer at the buzzer that dropped for three and brought it to a 37-35 halftime score.
The momentum from Telamon's basket carried over to the second half where the Gaiter's jumped out to a 46-41 lead just four minutes in. But the see-saw battle would continued as Blackwood dropped a clutch three to once again tie the match at 48-48.
Unfortunately, the next four minutes would prove telling as the Gaiters went on a 12-3 run to build a 60-51 lead more than midway through the half. They did this by punishing the Stingers with several odd man rushes in transition and forcing them to settle for desperate, low-percentage shot attempts.
That having been said, the higher percentage shots weren't falling either. This is where Szita stepped in. Although the six-foot-seven forward was expected to be a presence on the offensive end, he also took it up a notch on defence along with the rest of his team, as Concordia scrambled from the perimeter and were bothered by Szita in the paint.
Hope still wasn't dead, however, as the Stingers started to chip at the lead.
First Patrick Perrotte racked up 17 points for Concordia and finished off a three-point play from the foul line to keep his team within comeback range. Minutes later, Blackwood would toss up a tough lay-in that dropped to cut it to a five-point deficit with just under two minutes remaining.
Unfortunately, just 30 seconds later, Max Jones buried a clutch three-pointer that not only brought the score back up to 70-62 but made it a three possession game.
Bishop's would give Concordia one final chance to make their way back into the game as Jonathan Dresner, who led all scorers with 18 points, was fouled at the arc and awarded three free-throws. Unfortunately, Dresner would miss the final shot to keep the Stingers two-possessions away form tying and proved to be inconsequential.
"We're disappointed because all year we showed that they're [Bishop's] not that great. We didn't choke but we didn't compete with these guys," Perrotte said.
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