Long layoff derails River Lions
A Canadian Elite Basketball League title continues to elude the grasp of the Niagara River Lions.
Niagara’s 2023 season came to an end Friday night in Langley, B.C., with a 74-71 semifinal loss to the eventual champion Scarborough Shooting Stars.
“It wasn’t a good one,” Niagara head coach/GM Victor Raso said. “Defensively we played OK but offensively it was our worst game of the year at the worst time. We tried to prepare for our worst day, hoping our worst day didn’t happen. Even with that, we fought through and had a chance to win at the end. We were up by two going into the target score but that Scarborough team was tough and they were peaking at the right time.”
It was Niagara’s first game since concluding the regular season July 29 with a 82-72 victory over the Brampton Honey Badgers. The River Lions clinched first place and a bye into the semifinals with a 13-7 regular season record.
“Those 14 days between our game against Montreal (July 28 when Niagara rested several regulars) and our game on Friday kind of hurt because we had a great rhythm and I think we were the best team in the league at that point,” he said. “If we had played a series where we got to play them the next night, I think it’s completely different story but that’s the nature of the beast in these one-game eliminations. We sat around for two weeks and I thought we did everything we could apart from getting a full-blown exhibition game but we were off a little bit.”
Raso felt his squad fought itself the entire game to get into an offensive rhythm.
“Ultimately we couldn’t get that part of it done. Our group has been good defensively throughout the year but our issues have been when it is going bad on offence can we make sure it goes good on defence the entire time. We had some breakdowns and a lot of it was because we couldn’t find a rhythm offensively. It was a disappointing one.”
Raso and the entire squad were upset with the setback.
“We all kind of knew what this group’s potential was and we all thought we should have won both games here this weekend,” he said. “It is probably the most difficult one out of all the years. When we lost to Edmonton, we were ravaged by COVID and that was an awesome team. Last year, the Scarborough team that beat us was way more talented than us. This year’s team was good, they liked each other and we had enough talent to do it. We didn’t and that is a very difficult pill to swallow.”
Raso hopes to bring as much of the roster back as possible to take another run at a CEBL crown in 2024.
“I would love to. I have learned in this world of the one-year contracts and how guys are playing on different teams overseas it can never be the exact same group but I will do my best to make sure there’s a significant group of them coming back next year.”
Niagara didn’t leave Langley completely devoid of hardware as Khalil Ahmad was named the league’s defensive player of the year. He was the league’s MVP in 2022.
“Khalil is a competitor and I thought he should have been the MVP again this year. This year, he averaged one less point per game, we had the most wins in the whole league and Khalil played 16 of the 20 games,” Raso said. “He was second in the league in assists and first in the league in steals and Khalil was amazing. The fact that he got recognition on the defensive side of things was great. It goes to show the type of person and the talent he is and we are lucky to have him in Niagara.”
Top performers for Niagara in the semifinal loss were: Jahvon Henry-Blair with 20 points and four assists; Edward Ekiyor with 15 points and six rebounds; Kimbal Mackenzie with nine points; and, Ahmad with eight points and five assists.
Top scorers for Scarborough were Cat Barber (15), Gedi Juozapaitis (13), Isiaha Mike (12) and Khalif Young (11).
