MONTREAL -- Alex Paquin scored 27 points for McGill but Olivier Simon replied with a game-high 32 points and grabbed seven rebounds as visiting Concordia erased an early nine-point deficit to come away with an 87-81 victory in men's university basketball at Love Competition Hall, Thursday.

Buoyed by a boisterous crowd of 546 in the fourth annual "Pots and Pans" promotion, presented by Fonds de solidarité FTQ, the Redmen jumped into a 19-12 lead by the end of the opening quarter. But the Stingers bounced back to outscore McGill 28-22 in the second and 30-17 in the third stanza to take a comfortable 70-58 lead into the final quarter, which McGill won 23-17.

"We had two bad quarters defensively, giving up 58 points in the second and third," said McGill head coach David DeAveiro. "Concordia did a lot of good things offensively and we didn't react to them well. We came out in the third quarter and were scoring consistently but couldn't get a stop defensively. So we weren't really rewarding our effort on offence with our defensive play. That hurt us and we we're playing a good team."

Simon shot 10-for-16 from the field, including 4-for-5 from three-point range and went 8-for-9 from the charity stripe. Two of his teammates, Ricardo Monge and Adrian Armstrong, added 16 points apiece to pace the Stingers relentless attack.

McGill had a slight 38-36 rebounding advantage and a 3-1 edge in blocked shots but Concordia had a 13 -7 margin in steals.

Paquin, whose 27 points was two shy of his career-high against Duke this summer, added seven rebounds, four assists and a pair of steals, just three days after landing from a marathon flight out of China, where he guided four Redmen seniors to a silver medal at the FIBA world 3-on-3 championship tournament.

Redmen sophomore starter Sam Jenkins added 15 points and five rebounds, while two other seniors who also made the long trip to China -- Noah Daoust and Avery Cadogan -- contributed nine points apiece. Daoust was one point and one rebound shy of a double-double.

"We can make excuses that (our four seniors were jet-lagged) but that's not who we are," added DeAveiro. "We talked to those guys before they left and made it clear that they had to find a way to get back on our time zone before they left China. So perhaps they struggled a little bit during the week but that's not an excuse for the way we played defensively. We didn't play defence tonight."

The Stingers had an advantageous 22-15 edge in turnovers that translated to an 18-11 differential on the scoreboard.

"That's what young kids do, they turnover the ball a lot because they're not used to making those decisions," DaVeiro noted. "They're not in those moments enough. They don't have the experience, so were going to have to live with our turnovers until we get them down to a reasonable number like 12 or 13 per game. And defensively, we'll watch the video, look at our breakdowns and make the corrections."

Concordia shot 37.8 per cent from the field (28/74), 42.3 from three-point range (11/26) and drained 20 of 25 from the line (20/25). The Redmen matched that with a 42.2 per cent success rate from the floor (27/64), 37.0 from the arc (10/27) and made 17 of 21 free-throws.

As part of McGill's partnership with FTQ -- a Québec development capital organization whose overriding mission is to invest in local businesses to further economic development -- one lucky fan was awarded the chance to win $10,000 at halftime by getting two shots from mid-court and just needed to drain one but the closest he came was hitting the rim.

Concordia, which sits second in the league at 2-1, will host division-leading Bishop's (3-0) on Nov., 24, while McGill (2-2) gets a one-week bye before closing out the fall semester against the Gaiters in Lennoxville on Dec. 1.


 

2018-19 RSEQ Men's Basketball Standings • Classement de la saison régulière du Basketball (m)

Pos	Team/Équipe	GP/MJ	W/V	L/D	PF/PP	PA/PC	PCT/MOY	GBL/Diff.	PTS
1	Bishop's	3	3	0	250	230	1.000	0.0	6
2	McGill	3	2	1	198	196	0.667	1.0	4
3	Concordia	2	1	1	143	152	0.500	1.5	2
4	UQAM	3	1	2	220	208	0.333	2.0	2
5	Laval	3	0	3	210	235	0.000	3.0	0