MONTREAL --
Adrian Armstrong scored a game-high 19 points as division-leading Concordia defeated McGill 69-61 in men's university basketball to capture the first annual George Lengvari Cup, at Love Competition Hall, Saturday.
McGill, which fell to 3-4, was missing injured starters
Alex Paquin and
Isaiah Cummins. They came close but were no match against the No.9 ranked Stingers, who improved to 8-1 atop the RSEQ conference standings.
Concordia led 22-15 after the opening quarter but McGill battled them to a 14-14 draw in the second. The Stingers started out strong again in the second half, winning the third stanza 21-14 but a fourth quarter 18-12 McGill rally fell short.
Sam Jenkins led the Redmen with 14 points, while teammate
Avery Cadogan tallied 12 points and eight rebounds.
Levi Londole came off the bench to play a team-high 32 minutes. He scored 10 points, pulled down nine rebounds and contributed one block with a pair of assists.
McGill had a 37-23 advantage in rebounding, a 3-0 edge in blocked shots. Both teams had seven steals and Concordia committed 17 turnovers to McGill's 16.
"It was a hard-fought contest, our kids played much better today than they did on Thursday (an 86-69 loss at Concordia)," said McGill bench boss
David DeAveiro. "We competed, did some nice things defensively. It's definitely something to build on while we wait to get (our injured players back).
"We're going to struggle to score without Alex (Paquin), he creates and does so many different things. At times when we're struggling, we have to find someone who's just going to takeover and create his own shots and make a tough bucket. We tried to focus in the second half to push it inside a little more and get Londole more involved and I think we did a good job at that. It's small steps that we need to take."
The Stingers shot 43.1 per cent from the floor (25/58) and made 10 of 25 from three-point range. McGill shot 38.6 from the field (22/57) but only made six of 24 treys. they also struggled at the foul-line, making 11 of 22, compared to Concordia's 9-for-13 effort.
"Concordia is the best team in our conference right now and they're playing and defending like that," added DeAveiro. "So for us to compare Thursday's game with today and to see how much better we played, we can build on that. Our young players are getting great minutes and learning how to compete. Nobody likes to lose a game but you got to take some positives out of this and I think our young kids did a really good job."
This new Lengvari Cup challenge game will rotate between McGill and Concordia every year. The event is named in honour of long-time benefactor
George Lengvari, Jr., a native Montrealer and chairman of Lengvari Capital, Ltd., who presented the trophy in a post-game ceremony. Lengvari earned a bachelor's degree in economics from Loyola College (BA '63) – one of Concordia's two founding institutions -- and a law degree from McGill (BCL '66). During his varsity playing days, he was a forward and MVP of the Loyola Warriors team that won the Ottawa-St. Lawrence league title in 1962-63 and qualified for the first Canadian Final Four national championship. He went on to play three seasons at McGill, where he served as team captain of the basketball Redmen.
Up next for McGill is a home-and-home series with Bishop's, which sits fifth in the RSEQ conference with a 3-7 record. The Redmen will host BU on Thursday (Jan. 24) at 8 p.m., before heading to Lennoxville for a rematch on Jan. 26 at 8 p.m.
2018-19 RSEQ Men's Basketball Standings
| 1 |
Concordia |
9 |
8 |
1 |
750 |
675 |
0.889 |
0.0 |
16 |
| 2 |
UQAM |
9 |
4 |
5 |
688 |
685 |
0.444 |
4.0 |
8 |
| 3 |
McGill |
7 |
3 |
4 |
477 |
494 |
0.429 |
4.0 |
6 |
| 4 |
Laval |
7 |
3 |
4 |
530 |
541 |
0.429 |
4.0 |
6 |
| 5 |
Bishop's |
10 |
3 |
7 |
783 |
833 |
0.300 |
5.5 |
6 |
