It was a tough start for the St. Mary Marauders senior A boys at their home basketball tournament on Thursday night. They dropped a 94-59 game to the Aden Bowman Bears on home court.
Despite the loss against one of the top teams in the province, coach Dave Seto was pleased with the way his team performed.
“I think it was great for our team,” Seto said. “I know the score didn’t indicate that, but I always tell the guys you only get better by playing better competition. That team is one of the best in the province, so I don’t mind losing. It’s good for our guys to play that competition.”
Thursday marked the first time the Marauders played in a tournament type atmosphere after playing only a handful of exhibition games over the last few weeks. Returning to play on their home court is nice, and for Seto, the chance to play against some of the best competition makes him excited for the growth of his team.
“I thought at times, we played well,” he said. “We had it down to a ten point game in the third, but they’re a good team. I look at the competition and I know in the long run these games will be better for our teams. As a coach, you’re never happy. There are things that we have to get better at for sure. But the main goal is to play some big competition.
“I thought on offence we could’ve moved the ball a bit better. We had some turnovers. Defensively I thought our rotations were pretty good. (Aden Bowman) obviously had some mismatches, they had some size advantages on us. They hit shots, and that was the difference in the game. That’s not the fault of our defence. They just hit their shots.”
The Marauders return to the court for a game on Friday and Saturday, and Seto says there is a lot to take away from their first game of the tournament heading into the weekend.
“We have a big game (Friday),” he said. “We just have to regroup. The biggest thing about playing a team like that is the timing of everything. Everything is faster and they take away our space a lot quicker. That’s going to help us move forward in the future.”
St. Mary plays at 8pm both Friday and Saturday night, against Estevan and Warman.
@kyle_kosowan•sports@paherald.sk.ca
