Win or learn

By: Justin Parker

This rivalry just got more interesting.

The men’s basketball team suffered their first loss of the regular season at the hands of the Brock Badgers in a 72-71 nail-biter on Nov. 16. In such a close game, late missed shots can always be pointed to as possible game winners. However, poor shot choices plagued the Marauders throughout the entire game.

The Marauders started the first quarter with a field goal percentage of 44.4 per cent, but dropped to 23.8 per cent in the second quarter. The team finished the game shooting 26.9 per cent from three and 60.9 per cent at the charity stripe. In a game that saw 10 lead changes and seven ties, one shot can really make a difference. However, as coach Amos Connolly notes, it is tough to point to an early missed shot as a missed opportunity to capture the win.

“You can always look back on it and handle something differently, that happens all the time,” Connolly said. “From a tactical standpoint, I don’t think you ever walk out of a game and say ‘okay, we just nailed that one perfectly’. The coaches are too good and the players are too good, and things change all the time. The decisions compound. It’s not fair to pick apart things that happened in the first quarter as necessarily the reason why you lost the game by one, but it all relates.”

Fifth-year senior Lazar Kojovic struggled early and got into foul trouble, which opened up more playing time for bench. Guard Chris Thompson who entered the game in the first quarter with a bang, scoring 10 points on 4-5 shooting, including two threes. Thompson finished with a career-high 21 points in 27 minutes and added five steals to the stat sheet.

The team is keeping their heads up and recognizing what can be learned from this close loss

“[Thompson] came off the bench and played really really well and Chris doesn’t get tired very often,” Connolly said. “So you don’t necessarily have to sub him out because of fatigue in the same way you might with other players. When he came off the bench and played as well as he did, combined with Lazar struggling, it just kind of lead to him having more minutes it was a pretty easy decision to make in the combination of those two factors. We’re fortunate that Chris stepped up the way he did.”

Playing a career game, Thompson missed two key free throws late in the game when the Marauders had a chance to regain the lead. Despite a couple of late threes by Connor Gilmore, who lead the team with 25 points and 10 rebounds, the Marauders ultimately could not pull out the win.

However, the team is keeping their heads up and recognizing what can be learned from this close loss as they have a week off before they turn their attention to the rest of their season, including two tough games against Carleton and Ottawa to close out the fall semester schedule.

“The mantra we have this year is win or learn,” Connolly said. “As cheesy as that may sound, I think it is pretty appropriate. In the past couple of years, we took losses very hard as a group. That caused many issues with the team. We’re trying pretty hard to make sure that we understand that losses have value and what we can gain from it. We are certainly in the learning mindset after last night.”

As the Marauders shift their focus to the last few games of the fall term, they look for a chance to get back on the winning track and keep pace with Brock who currently holds first place in their division. While Ontario basketball continues to be the most competitive in the country, the Central Divison of the OUA is starting this season as a real battleground of strong teams. The Marauders will get to play the Badgers again on Nov. 26 in what should prove to be another tough battle as Mac will look to exact revenge.