The St. John’s Edge will look to avoid going ‘0’ for Ontario Monday night as they take on the Sudbury Five in the conclusion of a four-game trip through Canada’s most populous province.
It’s the last road game of the National Basketball League of Canada regular season for St. John’s (17-14), which closes out their 2018-19 schedule with eight dates at Mile One Centre in March.
That long Mile One stay in March will follow a February spent almost exclusively on the mainland. Including tonight’s matchup in Sudbury, nine of the Edge’s 11 games this month will have been away contests, and while things started well with wins Feb. 4 in Sydney, N.S. and Feb. 7 in Charlottetown, P.E.I., it’s been tough sledding since then.
St. John’s has lost six straight road games, sandwiched around a pair of wins over the Windsor Express at Mile One, their lone home games of the month.
In the past week, the Edge have lost in Windsor, London and Kitchener, with the latest setback coming Saturday , when they fell 117-105 to the KW Titans.
The game story in Kitchener followed what’s become a regular recent script for St. John’s, which fell behind early — the Titans led 40-25 after the first quarter — and couldn’t close the gap.
Glen Davis and Junior Cadougan each had 24 points for the Edge, while Diego Kapelan added 16. Dez Lee and Shaquille Keith both had 14.
Obinna Oleka topped the team in rebounds with 11.
Damon Lynn had a game-high 34 points for the Titans, including 18 on six-for-10 three-point shooting. It was part of a highly successful long-range attack for the home side, which sank 20 treys, shooting better than 54 per cent from beyond the arc.
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Tonight’s game comes on the first-ever trip to Sudbury for the Edge.
The expansion Five were at Mile One for a pair of games in early January, with St. John’s winning both times.
The Edge enter tonight’s contest still in first place in the NBLC’s Central Division based on winning percentage, but things are extremely tight.
In fact, if these were baseball standings, there would be only two-and-a-half games between first-place St. John’s and fifth-place Kitchener-Waterloo (14-15) in the division, with Windsor (16-14), the defending champion London Lightning (18-16) and Sudbury (16-16) in between.
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Former St. John’s fan favourite Grandy Glaze, who signed on with Sudbury in the off-season, is no longer with the team, having left the Five and the NBLC to play with a team in Chile.
Glaze departed as the NBLC’s leading rebounder this season, averaging 11.5 boards per game. Of qualifying players still in the league, the top rebounder is now the Edge’s Oleka (10.5).
The Five do have Maurice Jones, who began this season as St. John’s starting point guard but was traded to the Island Storm earlier this month in exchange for Russell Byrd.
Jones, who was subsequently flipped to the Five by the Storm, has averaged 21.5 ppg in two games with Sudbury.