The Concordia Stingers lost a see-saw battle with the UQAM Citadins 81-71 in the RSEQ men’s basketball semifinal at the Pierre Charnonneau Centre on Friday night.
It’s the second straight year that Concordia dominated regular season play versus UQAM but was eliminated in a semifinal showdown at the conference’s FINAL 4 tournament.
The Stingers finished the regular season in second place with an 11-5 record while the Citadins took third spot with an 8-8 performance.Concordia took three of the four games between the teams this season. The only black mark was a 68-67 loss on Jan. 7.
Citadins head coach Nate Philippe said his team had done its homework and executed well.“We followed our game plan to a T,” said Philippe. ‘The game plan involved taking away Concordia’s transition game and battling hard for rebounds. It was very successful.”
“UQAM played harder than us,” said Concordia head coach Rastko Popovic. “They had 20 offensive rebounds. That was the difference. They had 21 second-chance points off that. You can’t win games when you give up rebounds like that and shoot like we shot from the free throw line.”
Concordia’s Nicky Noble led all scorers in the game with 17 points. Guard Ricardo Monge, who had 11 points and six assists, was the Stingers’ Player of the Game.
Three members of the Citadins scored 16 points each: Misi Boye, Ibrahima Silla and Christian Kadima who was the UQAM Player of the Game.
