Calgary’s pro basketball club opens post-season Friday night with must-win host of Winnipeg Sea Bears
Jordy Tshimanga is ready for redemption.
That after coming up just buckets short of the 2023 Canadian Elite Basketball League championship.
But the 2024 road to reaching that feat for the mammoth centre and his Calgary Surge teammates is a rough one.
“Four games — all wins — to get everything, so we’ve got to lock in,” said Tshimanga, the 6-foot-11 big man from Montreal.
“Everybody knows where we were last year — we were this close to the goal, but didn’t make it happen unfortunately,” continued Tshimanga. “We’ve got another chance this year, so we’ve got to make the most of it.
“Back to playoffs.”
Indeed, back to playoffs, beginning Friday night for the Surge (11-9) against the visiting Winnipeg Sea Bears (9-11) — and talented guard Justin Wright-Foreman, who runs a great floor-show — in the Western Conference play-in game at WinSport Event Centre (7:30 p.m., TSN2).
Loser goes home.
“You’ve got to take it game by game — can’t really look forward to the next game,” Tshimanga said. “It’s just the first game first, and then worry about the next one after that.
“Make sure we’re all locked in — all do our job and stay together.”
Remaining together hasn’t been all that easy in the Surge’s second season, only because of all the turnover on the team.
Guys have come and gone from the roster — an unfortunate side effect of the CEBL’s summer-time campaign — making it hard to find that unity from one game to the next.
But they’ve persevered, winning more games in the back half of the schedule than early on in the short season.
In fact, the Surge have won nine of their last 13 and five of their last seven contests. Highlighted in that end-of-year success was a run of four straight victories, which is exactly what they’ll need ahead to avenge last year’s finale drop to the defending champion Scarborough Shooting Stars.
“I think it took a little while at the beginning — myself included — just getting comfortable with staff, getting comfortable with the players, because it’s a new environment,” said Surge first-year head coach Tyrell Vernon. “It took some time.
“But from the very beginning, I felt like we were getting better. You know … even though we started 0-3 and 1-4, we got better for each game that we played. So there wasn’t a lot of panic, it was moreso that we were getting better.”
Having gotten better at the right time — with playoffs afoot — certainly has Vernon & Co. excited about what lies ahead.
And never mind the so-so record since parity has been a played a big part in the CEBL this season.
“Every game has been a dogfight,” insisted Vernon. “So we’ve got a fight on our hands and we need to be prepared for it — have control and put our best foot forward.
“We just need to focus on each possession at a time — focus on winning each possession,” Vernon said. “If we haven’t done well in a couple of possessions and it snowballs into four or five, that’s when we don’t do well. We just gotta take each possession for what it is, and then you live with the results and always can’t fracture and get upset with each other just because one possession goes wrong.
“And in the end, like I said, it’s a dogfight, so anybody can lose to anybody.”
But to win it all, you can’t lose now.
First, it’s Friday’s play-in game for the Surge.
A win takes them north to challenge the arch-rival Edmonton Stingers (13-7) on Sunday.
And the winner from that Western semifinal moves onto the Aug. 9 conference final against the Vancouver Bandits (14-6) during the CEBL Championship Weekend in Montreal.
The CEBL finale then caps off the season in Montreal on Aug. 11.
“For the guys that were here last year, you always come back with a little more hunger to get that close and not accomplishing that final goal,” said Tshimanga, who returns for a second year of playoffs along with teammates Stef Smith, Justin Jackson and Sean Miller-Moore.
“Myself, I have a little edge to win this whole thing. I want to win this whole thing.”
The key seems to be in the chemistry and if it’s come quick enough for the changing Surge.
“It’s been tough, losing some players and adding some players,” admitted Tshimanga, whose team welcomes back guard Trhae Mitchell to the floor — fresh from the NBA Summer League — for the playoffs. “There’s always that dynamic of uncertainty about who’s here and who’s not. But now the roster’s finalized, so we’re going to work with who we’ve got here now.
“I like our chances. I like our chances.”