Bandits roll past Shooting Stars to punch their ticket to Championship Weekend

The Vancouver Bandits are Championship Weekend-bound.

Led by Marcus Carr’s 22 points, the Bandits (14-5) secured tops in the Western Conference, and a bye to Championship Weekend in Montreal, with a 104-90 victory over the Scarborough Shooting Stars (11-8) Friday night at Toronto Pan Am Sports Centre.

“It was definitely a goal of ours to come here this weekend and get that done,” said Carr, who shot an efficient 8-for-13 from the field coming off the bench. “We’re happy we executed, but the job’s not done, so now we’re just gonna go back to the drawing board at practice and get better.”

The Bandits entered Friday’s game looking like the best team in the league – boasting the highest points per game average, lowest points against per game average and the best point differential in the league – and looked every bit of that moniker, halting the hottest team in the CEBL’s win streak at four games.

Bandits coach Kyle Julius is well aware of the team that he has on his hands but has belief that there’s still another gear for this team to hit as they try to win it all in Montreal.

“You have to [keep improving],” Julius said. “It starts with our leadership. The leaders set the tone every day – it starts with those guys – and this was Phase 1 for us and now we’ve got to go into Phase 2.

“These guys have nothing to do with last year, but I was thoroughly embarrassed with the way we played last year and we’ve really worked hard this year to bring a different group in with a different approach and when we started doing it that was Phase 1 and now it’s playoff basketball and everybody’s gotta be better. The coaching staff, the water guys, the trainers, the last guy’s gotta be better and it starts right now.”

Vancouver now owns the longest active win streak in the league at four straight and with the chemistry and togetherness that they play with, the Bandits could see that streak extend all the way to a title.

“This team is probably one of the, out of all the teams that I’ve been on all my life, we’re more connected,” said Vancouver guard Taze Moore, who finished with 15 points and five rebounds. “We go out to eat, rock climb, jump out of planes – I’m gonna go next week but some of the guys already went – fishing.

“We do a lot of stuff together to the point where we trust each other and in the end, we’re having fun even though we’re just meeting for the first year. And being able to build those connections and knowing that somebody has your back in only a total of four months is great to have.”

The Bandits took early command of the game with Moore knocking in two early triples to start the game as they jumped out to a 36-24 lead after the first quarter.

That lead would balloon to as much as 15 early in the second, but Scarborough wouldn’t go away, cutting the lead down to a more sizeable 54-48 at the half, and allow the Shooting Stars to strike in the third quarter.

Thanks to a 15-7 run to start the second half, Scarborough managed to take a lead, 65-63, with 6:27 left to play in the period, punctuated by a triple from Donovan Williams, who recently returned from NBA Summer League.

Overall, Williams looked great Friday, finishing with 25 points, and during that third-quarter run, him and Cat Barber looked like the reliable dynamic duo that could see the Shooting Stars repeat as CEBL champions.

Unfortunately, that run was the only point of the game where Barber looked effective, scoring eight of his 13 points during that stretch.

The Shooting Stars managed to push their lead to as much as seven points, but that quickly evaporated coming down the stretch of the third, with Carr hitting a half-court buzzer-beating three to tie the game up at 80 apiece entering the fourth, seemingly completely sucking the life out of Scarborough as the Bandits would go on to start the final quarter on a 10-0 run and never look back from there.

“I didn’t anticipate they were gonna go small at the start of the fourth,” said Shooting Stars head coach Devan Blair. “When Nick Ward got hurt I thought they would go back to [Kur] Jongkuch, and they didn’t. They went small and then we weren’t able to attack their switching enough. … So, I certainly take ownership of that. Good job by Coach to make that adjustment, but we’ll be ready come playoff time.”

Bandits forward Ward appeared to suffer a calf injury and was forced to leave the court with assistance in the third quarter. Before he left the game, he put up 12 points and three rebounds, numbers good to see him reach 900 points and 400 rebounds for his CEBL career in the regular season.

Barber of the Shooting Stars also reached a CEBL milestone, eclipsing the 250-rebound mark in the regular season with the eight that he hauled down.

Up Next

Both the Bandits and Shooting Stars conclude their regular seasons on Sunday. Vancouver will be getting a sneak peak of what it might be in for during Championship Weekend as it visits the Montreal Alliance, while Scarborough will host the Calgary Surge.