After spending six of their first seven games away from Calgary, going 0-7 over that stretch, the Surge’s return home ended in a stunning defeat as the Saskatoon Mamba scored 10 straight points to close out the game.
Calgary entered target time up 84-82. Surge forward Sean “Rugzy” Miller-Moore, who’s in his fourth year with the squad, said that target time really changes a player’s perspective.
“You always want to get the best shot, but you have to have a balance,” he said.
“Sometimes people are a little too worried about getting the best shot, but the best shot is us running in transition, the best shot is us playing fast. We just got to figure it out for sure.”
Surge Interim Head Coach David Deaveiro, who debuted as head coach in Wednesday’s loss, said his team has been knocking on the door to their first win all season, and no one can open it.
“For us to be successful, we have to take care of little things at the most crucial times. When we go back and watch this game’s film, we lose the game on plays like being up seven, and we gave up two threes to make it one,” he said.
“Those little, those small little details are what hurts us, so we don’t know how to be successful in those moments, like when we need to get that stop or when we need to run our offense to get a good shot.”
Opposite to the game’s bitter ending, the Surge started off strong, winning the opening tipoff, scoring on their first possession and blocking the Mamba on theirs. Calgary left the first quarter with a five-point lead, up 28-23.
Early momentum continued into the second, where Surge guard Evan Gilyard II and forward Caelum Swanton-Rogers combined for an alley-oop dunk to put Calgary ahead 46-45 at halftime.
The well-rounded minutes from his bench squad were the biggest positives from the evening, Deaveiro said.
‘Calgary’s a good team’: Saskatoon coach compliments winless Surge
Despite his team trailing on and off for most of the game, Isaiah Fox, first-year Mamba Head Coach, said that on the bench, Saskatoon was confident they could pull out the victory.
“Right when they hit target time, the message was, ‘Just get that stop,’ and then again and again. We were doing a pretty good job getting into our actions and so the most concerning part was legitimately the defensive stops,” he said.
“We left a lot on the board from the free-throw perspective, and we missed some gimmies. For the most part, we generated good shots.”
The Mamba shot a whopping 45 per cent from behind the arc. Deaveiro said that giving up 15 three-point shots and still coming that close to victory is a micro win in itself.
Fox, whose team started the season 0-4, said that once the Surge get that first win, they’ll be a tough team to beat.
“I’m very happy we got this win. I believe once Calgary gets their first win, they’re going to be a very dangerous team to deal with,” he said.
“When we got our first win, it was a big stress reliever. I can imagine in a high-stress environment, everyone has a lot of anxiety, there’s no doubt they want to win, they play hard, it’s a good team and once they crack the seal, they’re going to be very dangerous.”
Heavy team evaluation needed
Over the next 10 days, the Surge play four games. Deaveiro said that over that stretch, things may slowly start to improve, but implementing his system will take time.
“I’m not sure what our purpose is right now, but we’ll figure it out, we’ll watch tape. We’re playing three games in five days, so I don’t know how much better it’s going to get in those three games, but I know after that we’ve got some time to practice, and then we’ve got 10 days off where we can get better,” he said.
Winning is not easy, Deaveiro said. When the Surge return to the court on Friday night in Winnipeg to take on the Sea Bears, Deaveiro and his staff will get a true sense of where the team’s at.
“(Friday) We’ll be against a good team in their gym in front of 8,000 people. We’ll see what our team is made of on Friday. We will definitely do that,” he said.
“In that hostile environment, we’re gonna learn a lot about our group.”
