Game Day Preview: May 16th

St. Catharine’s stand up.

CEBL basketball has finally made its way to the Meridian Centre as the Niagara River Lions host the Edmonton Stingers at 7 PM. The River Lions are the last team to host a CEBL game.

In the two games so far this season, the River Lions have showed an innate ability to rally when trailing in the game.

In the first game of the season, the River Lions trailed by 12 and came back to win. In their last game they trailed by as many as 14 and came back to force overtime. The River Lions had tired legs playing in their first back-to-back of the season and have had the last six days to rest.

“The rest was great but our main focus coming into this week of practice was our defensive fundamentals as well as our rebounding,” Head Coach Victor Raso said Wednesday. “We were very disappointed in how poorly we rebounded the ball.”

The River Lions struggled with the physical frontcourt of the Edmonton Stingers: Grandy Glaze and Jordan Baker each had big games in the Stingers overtime win last Friday.

The River Lions were going in blind against Edmonton last week, as the Stingers had not played a game yet. The good part about tonight’s match-up? Well, now Raso has some tape and game experience to adjust.

“We will be able to prepare for them properly now,” Raso said. “We have a much better idea of their tendencies as a team, their strengths, weaknesses and how they play.”

The firepower the Stingers opened Friday’s game with was startling for the River Lions, as the Stingers went on a 7-0 run. When Raso decided to use his first timeout, the Stingers led 16-5.

With the Stingers game still fresh in the River Lions’ mind, Raso is hoping his guys will use it as fuel to
bring the intensity for their home opener.

“We’ve had an insanely competitive two days of practice leading up until Wednesday, and I’m very happy with that coming off a loss,” Raso said. “We feel like we got beat in areas that were very much controllable and that hasn’t sat very well with the guys.”

Xavier Moon had a great game in particular for Edmonton, scoring at will off the dribble, using his pull- up jumpers and finishing ability to get 39 points.

Look for a great bounce-back game from Trae Bell-Haynes, who has drawn the start for the River Lions at the point guard spot the last two games.

As for Niagara, Guillaume Boucard has been impressive scoring the basketball for them, with 19 in the first game and 24 in the second game. We’ve also seen impressive outside shooting from Ryan Anderson and starting center Sam Muldrow.

The Stingers followed up that home victory with a 106-83 loss against Hamilton, and the River Lions are hoping to open up the Meridian Centre with a win.

What are home openers for, after all?