Calgary’s pro basketball club survives Friday night’s dramatic home tilt to move onward in playoffs
It’s been another successful season for the city’s pro basketball team.
Yes … Year 2 of the Calgary Surge has been one to cheer.
Certainly, off the court.
And hopefully — through next weekend — on the court.
“Yeah … it’s been an incredible journey, right?” said Surge vice-chairman and president Jason Ribeiro, when asked to reflect on the 2024 Canadian Elite Basketball League campaign and his franchise’s place in the community in its sophomore year.
“I think we feel a little bit more like our feet are on the ground this year and a little bit of scar tissue was built up,” continued Ribeiro. “Especially with the (slow) start to the season.
“You know … there were questions about the excellence of this basketball program and whether we can replicate the success from last year. And we stayed the course.”
Still are staying the course, in fact — at least for one more game.
Friday’s dramatic 84-82 edge of the visiting Winnipeg Sea Bears in the CEBL’s Western Conference play-in game before a raucous crowd at WinSport Event Centre keeps the Surge alive for a return to the league finale — something they accomplished during their successful debutant season.
And the celebration comes after a rough early part of the schedule — an 0-3 start and 1-4 through five games.
“We weathered the storm early after a very compressed training camp and a new group and a lot of roster transition,” said Ribeiro, praising GM Shane James and rookie head coach Tyrell Vernon for maintaining an even-keel under the pressures of a league fraught with so much off-season and mid-schedule turnover. “And we end up back here clinching a home playoff game, we end up back here winning at home, and we end up back here living to see another day.”
That day is Sunday, when they take on the host Edmonton Stingers (13-7) in the Western Conference semifinal (6 p.m., TSN5).
The winner from that rivalry moves onto the Aug. 9 conference final against the Vancouver Bandits (14-6) during the CEBL Championship Weekend in Montreal.
The CEBL final then goes Aug. 11 in Montreal, in which — of course — the Surge would love to be again.
Even though it was just one playoff game — and a play-in one at that — the resiliency they showed late Friday bodes well for such a run amid conference parity to that championship game.
“End of the game — a little bit nerve-wracking, but at the same time, we didn’t give up,” said Coach Vernon, when breaking down the affair that saw the Surge surge out to a 28-12 first-quarter lead and then nearly collapse in target-score time despite drawing to within one bucket of the win with an 82-78 advantage.
In fact, the Sea Bears had possession at 82-82, but their inbound pass was knocked away by Surge star Mathieu Kamba into the hands of dynamic teammate Corey Davis Jr., who then weaved his way the length of the court to hit a mid-range jumper for the winning points.
“A couple of turnovers that didn’t go our way that, earlier on the season, we fold up after those,” continued Vernon. “I think we knew that we had to get a couple of stops. We locked in and dug deep and got the stops we needed to get. And then we came down and Corey hits the shot that we needed.
“Basketball’s not always clean, and it’s not always the way you always draw it up. Sometimes it gets messy.”
It was a messy ending, for sure.
But the Surge started hot enough to make it their win to hold onto, with Calgary’s own Kamba showing the hot hand by dropping 13 points in the first quarter.
He poured in a game-high 27 points, while Davis posted 23 for the victors.
“I think it’s me being a vet, trying to go out there and lead and trying to bring people along,” said Kamba, 28. “If they see that I’m going out there playing 100%, I think people will follow. And we’ve got the guys — we’ve got the talent.”
Hopefully to become a champion …
A title fitting to match the second season of Surge success off the court.
“It’s amazing,” said Kamba, a former high-school star with the city’s Bishop McNally Timberwolves. “I really I see some old crowd, some old faces that I haven’t seen in years. So it’s great that not just me but the whole Surge community can bring the whole of Calgary together. It’s all love.
“Us going out there and giving back to the community and showing the kids that they can do this, too, is huge. Especially in my hometown.”
Remember that Kamba’s start with the franchise coincided with the club’s most memorable night of the season — a CEBL record attendance of 12,327 fans for a single game with the Surge 2 The Dome spectacle to tip off the schedule.
“Yeah … I’m confident you’ll see us back at the Saddledome (in 2025),” Ribeiro said. “We’re talking right now about just what that looks like, in an extended season even, because we’re going to add two home games next year. And so I think there’s a lot up in the air at the moment.
“But you can still look forward to us being back at the Dome, look forward to us in the community and look forward to us making a bigger impact the more that this franchise grows.”