Jason Hills
For MacEwan Athletics
EDMONTON — Five years to the day.
1,828 days. A losing streak that spanned 75 regular season games.
The streak is finally over!
The MacEwan Griffins walked out of the David Atkinson gym on Saturday night victorious after beating the Brandon Bobcats 90-88.
It was fitting that on the night the streak ended they were led by two veterans who have gone through many painful losses.
Job Janda scored a career-high 29 points – tied for the seventh-most by a Griffin in Canada West play – and added seven rebounds, while Milan Jaksic recorded his program-leading seventh double-double with 13 points and 13 rebounds as the Griffins overcame a 13-point fourth quarter deficit to record their first regular season win since Nov. 30, 2019.
The Griffins also got a big performance from second-year guard Joel Seke, who had a career-high 26 points and six rebounds in the win.
"There's been a lot of pressure on us, especially us older guys, and I wasn't here five years ago, but I came here (four years ago) to change the culture, and hopefully this is the right path and the right step to more wins this season," said Jaksic.
"We wanted to do this since the first day we got here. It's been a journey of ups and downs. Players going down (to injury), and players going in and out (of the program), and even now, we only had nine players today, and all nine guys battled hard today. It was an incredible win."
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MacEwan came out strong in the opening quarter and they had all facets of their game working, but Brandon battled back to cut the Griffins' lead to 45-41 at the half.
Over the streak, the Griffins have led at half, or heading into the fourth quarter, but one bad quarter, or one bad stretch would cost them the victory.
It looked like that may be the case again, as Brandon came out and dominated the third quarter outscoring MacEwan 38-21 on the strength of Canada West third-leading scorer Saltan Haider Bhatti, who topped the Bobcats with 31 points, eight rebounds and seven assists in the loss. Travis Hamberger added 16 points, as Brandon took a 13-point lead going into the fourth quarter.
But all those games where the Griffins weren't able to close out strong were tough, excruciatingly painful lessons that all came together against Brandon.
"It's been like that for the past three years (let games slip away), but this year, our group of guys, this is the best group of guys we've had. Just knowing we've been down before, but knowing we can come back from it again, this is a huge step for our team," said Janda.
Job Janda cuts through the @BUBobcats D for a silky smooth layup as the @MacEwanGriffins lead 45-41 at the half. Janda leads MacEwan with 18 points.#GriffNation pic.twitter.com/WVPOTCXhVr
— MacEwan Griffins Men's Basketball Team (@Griffins_MBB) December 1, 2024
MacEwan locked it down defensively holding the Bobcats to just nine points in the fourth quarter.
Jaksic and Diego Presingular hit two quick threes in the opening minute, and cut Brandon's lead to 79-72.
Down 83-78, great pressure from veteran forward Dami Osuma forced a Brandon turnover along the sideline. Osuma kept the ball in play and got it to Seke, who drove in for the tough layup, and drew the foul.
"Joel Seke stepped up, and he's been struggling lately, but he came up big for us. Those guys (Janda and Jaksic) are our leaders, and they had huge games," said Griffins head coach Mike Connolly
"Dami made the play of the game by getting that steal on that dive ball. They've (Janda, Jaksic and Osuma) been through so much the last four years. They deserve it."
Osuma finished with just four points, but his presence in the fourth quarter on defence was a huge factor in the win for MacEwan.
"You always hear from coaches, it just takes one play to force a chain reaction and one player to force a chain reaction, and today, I was fortunate to have that play where it forced other players to turn up the intensity," said Osuma.
"Joel stepped up big time, and Job was a monster, and Milan was a beast on the boards … we all had to step up."
Joel Seke, right, celebrates at the final buzzer (James Maclennan photo).
Milan Jaksic (13) walks off the court with teammates after scoring the winning basket (James Maclennan photo).
Osuma's free throw in the final minute cut Brandon's lead to 87-86 and then after a big stop on defence, Jaksic took the ball up court and drove to the basket and made the tough layup with 11.2 seconds left to give MacEwan their first lead since they were up 50-49 early in the third quarter.
Jaksic made the free throw to give MacEwan the slim 90-88 lead, and then they made one more big stop on defence to escape with the win.
"I told these guys before the game, we're going to win, and we wouldn't settle for anything else. We can't look at it any other way. Win the moment, win the defensive possession, and win minute-by-minute, and that's what we did," said Jaksic.
"Once I got the ball, I knew I was going to score. I knew what the points were, and I wanted to get us up by one, and I had to hit the free throw. I got the ball, and I knew I was going up with it."
MILAN. JAKSIC.
— MacEwan Griffins Men's Basketball Team (@Griffins_MBB) December 1, 2024
Hoop and the harm for a three-point play to deliver the first victory of the season for the @MacEwanGriffins!
90-88 for MacEwan over @BUBobcats #GriffNation pic.twitter.com/l6igB9mrLP
As the final buzzer sounded, you could see the emotion and excitement hit the Griffins bench as they celebrated.
As they walked off the court to their locker room to celebrate you could tell a huge weight was lifted off their shoulders.
"Very emotional for sure. A lot of tears of happiness and joy. There've been a lot of tough games, where we couldn't close it out, but today, we finally did," said Osuma.
"It's weighed on us a lot. I can't even put it into words. It's been a rough one mentally and having this feeling right now, it's a big weight off our shoulders, and that just gives us more confidence that we can keep this going into next semester.
Throughout this whole journey, Connolly never wanted his players to dwell on the past. He stressed to his team to live in the moment and keep building forward.
"We got it done. I don't care about the past. Throughout all of this, I just wanted the guys to keep moving forward. We struggled, and we lost a lot of tough games, but they continued to grow and learn," said Connolly.
"We battled nerves (in the third quarter), but we talked about if you defend and rebound you'll be in a good situation, and we got out and ran on offence and we did a good job executing down the stretch."
