The men’s basketball team lost back-to-back games for the first time this season, hosting Georgian on Feb. 6, their first home game in two weeks.
The Thunder struggled early on. By the midway point of the first quarter, they were down 10-0. It took over five and a half minutes for the Thunder to make their way onto the scoreboard.
Following the tough start, both teams played a fairly even game for the end of the first quarter, with Georgian controlling the game with a commanding 22-11 lead by its end.
The second quarter wasn’t much better for the Thunder. Georgian continued to pile on the offence, while the Thunder did everything they could to keep the visitors’ lead from growing.
They went into halftime down 42-28.
Algonquin managed to chip away at some of Georgian’s lead bit by bit over the next quarter and a half, getting within six points early in the fourth quarter.
That’s as close as they would get. Georgian piled on the offense to defeat the Thunder 89-77.
Thunder coach Trevor Costello wasn’t happy with many calls from the officials.
“The referees weren’t making the best of calls in our favour tonight definitely, but that’s just a cop out,” said Costello. “We can’t start a game down 10-0, that’s not good. We had a game plan and these guys fell asleep early. That set the tone early for the rest of the game. As you see, we lost by 10, and that was the difference.”
Murphy Beya, who led the team with 16 points, thinks the team needs to slow things down a bit, especially with the playoffs coming up.
“What we have to do to get better would be get patient on offence and defence. Everyone was rushing everything, so, be a bit more patient out there.”
The Thunder played back-to-back in Toronto on Jan. 29 and 30 against George Brown and Centennial.
The Thunder managed to come out on top against George Brown, winning the close game 80-76. Owen Powers led the team with 23 points, and Kristian Charette had 18.
They were down by just a point after the third quarter, but had a strong fourth quarter, outscoring George Brown 27-22 in a high scoring end to the game.
They lost the next day against Centennial 81-70. Charette led the team with 19 points.