Citadins surprise Redmen hoopsters as division leaders falter on the road, win streak ends at 8
MONTREAL – Sophomore Francois Bourque collected another "double-double" but it was all in vain as the cellar-dwelling UQAM Citadins erased a nine-point deficit to upset division-leading McGill 65-59 in men's college hoops at the Centre Sportif, Saturday.
The result halted McGill's win streak at six and snapped UQAM's seven-game losing streak against the Redmen.
Greishe Clerjuste scored 17 points to lead UQAM, which also had 14-point performances from Davidson Joseph and Jean-Yves Kazadi.
The Citadins trailed 23-15 after one quarter and 33-27 at halftime before roaring back to take to a 51-46 lead heading into the final frame. McGill managed to tie the game at the 6:33 mark but could not complete the comeback down the stretch.
"I thought in the first half we left a lot of points on the floor," said McGill bench-boss David DeAveiro, who was coaching in his 499th game over 14 years at the CIS level, including 162 at McGill. "We missed a lot of layups and did not shoot the ball well from the foul-line. Then in the second half we just didn't execute well and they made some big shots. They were just the hungrier team tonight."
For the Redmen, Bourque scored a game-high 18 points and pulled down 11 rebounds. He shot 7-for-12 from the floor, 1-of-2 from downtown and 3-fof-5 from the free-throw line.
Team captain Vincent Dufort, the reigning RSEQ player of the year, was the only other Redmen to reach double-digit scoring with 10 points. Sophomore Dele Ogundokun was held to nine points and pulled down nine rebounds.
McGill, which severely out-rebounded the Citadins (58-35), had a rough night shooting with a 35.1 per cent success rate from the floor (20/57). The Redmen connected on 29.4 from the three-point arc (5/17) and only 56 per cent from the free-throw line (14/25). UQAM shot 44.4 and 50 per cent, respectively and also struggled from the line, making 13 of 26 attempts.
McGill, which still leads the Quebec conference with a 7-3 record, will have an opportunity to get back on track when they face the Concordia Stingers (5-5) at Love Competition Hall on Thursday (Feb. 5) at 8 p.m. in the back end of a women's and men's doubleheader.
