The Stingers lose their season opener against last season’s top-seeded Redbirds
The Stingers began the 2021–22 RSEQ regular season with a disappointing loss to their rival Redbirds on Thursday night. In the 77–62 loss, Concordia’s rookies played major minutes and kept the team in the game, while the team’s senior players struggled with consistency.
“It’s encouraging to see our first-year guys play well,” said Rastko Popovic, head coach of the Stingers men’s basketball team. “But I thought our seniors just did not do the job tonight. We can’t expect our first-year guys to lead us to wins, especially when McGill’s two best players, especially Jamal Mayali, were outstanding tonight.”
As a team, McGill’s offence was firing on all cylinders, especially from the perimeter where the Redbirds went 12/31 on three-point field goal attempts. Conversely, Concordia’s offence struggled with their shot from behind the arc (4/24 from three) and at the free-throw line (18/28). Despite McGill’s exceptional play on both ends of the floor, Stingers guard Sami Jahan said Concordia was their own worst enemy.
“They [McGill] didn’t do anything that surprised us. We knew they moved the ball and could hit open shots, but we just didn’t execute on our game plan tonight and do what we were supposed to do,” Jahan said.
McGill’s fifth-year guard Mayali led the way for the Redbirds, tallying 29 points on 16 shot attempts with six made threes. Concordia rookie Olivier Koumassou Bernier led the Stingers in minutes and brought confidence and energy to the team. He finished the game with 10 points to go along with his three rebounds, three assists, and two steals.
The first half was back and forth with McGill leading 32–30 before the break, but Concordia struggled to keep their foot on the gas once play resumed. At the start of the third quarter, McGill went on an 8–0 run which gave the Redbirds a comfortable double-digit lead that Concordia could never overcome. Jahan put the team’s slow start to the second half on himself and the Stingers veterans.
“We didn’t come out with any energy,” Jahan said. “It was really the rookies that came into the game and held down the fort for us […] but we [the veterans] let the game slip and that’s on us.”
Thursday night was Concordia’s first game of the season, but the Stingers coaching staff were already discussing ways to improve the team amongst themselves well after the game.
“We have to play a lot harder and execute more offensively. There’s too many small details that we’re not doing right now. Today McGill played much harder. We showed some good things early on but we didn’t compete, especially in the second half,” Popovic said.
The Stingers will look to bounce back next week when they host Bishop’s and Laval at Concordia Stadium on Thursday and Saturday respectively.
Photograph by Laurent Beausoleil
