August 1, 2025
The Montreal Alliance are playoff bound following win over the Brampton Honey Badgers
For the second consecutive season, the Montreal Alliance will be playing playoff basketball. In front of their rowdy home fans, the Alliance poured on a dominant display tonight, defeating the Brampton Honey Badgers by twenty points and effectively eliminating them from earning a playoff spot this season in the process.
Having made their franchise playoff debut, as the host team of the CEBL Championship Weekend, they now head back into the post-season on their own merit. Not only did this win earn the Alliance a playoff spot, it also serves as their eight win of the season, which is now a franchise high and the season is not yet finished. While there have been some struggles along the way, this has been the best season in Alliance history so far.
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The opening quarter saw both squads exchanging the lead and both teams fighting back hard to regain it as well. The Brampton Honey Badgers player their best basketball of the game during the opening minutes, but soon began to fall behind the Alliance, who were relentless in driving the offensive plays and rugged charging back to defend their own zone too.
The Alliance under coach Jermaine Small have become a defensive power house that forces turn overs and mistakes from its opposition and that is what transpired here tonight. With playoff hopes on the line for both teams – one looking to clinch and the other struggling to stay alive, that defensive awareness was to be the key component in Montreal’s win and earned them their playoff spot.
The second half saw the spread beginning to stretch as the Montreal Alliance edged ahead through strong plays at both ends of the court, causing the Honey Badgers to commit foul after foul. At the half, the Alliance had etched out a seven point lead over Brampton and were finding their rhythm.
The third quarter was all Alliance. The Alliance outscored the Honey Badgers by a tally of thirty-four points to fifteen, which proved to be the difference in the game. Brampton tried to bring the game back within reach in the final frame, but Montreal was focused and determined and coach Jermaine Small said in the press post-game press conference, were “having fun out their”.
Alliance forward Kevin Osawe smashed home a powerful dunk to cap off the game, reaching the targeting score before yelling “we in!” to those lucky enough to have been courtside for the dominant statement game from the Montreal Alliance. At the final buzzer, the Alliance held a 103-83 lead over the Honey Badgers, largely from an incredible second half performance.
Not everything was roses in the Alliance victory, however, as center Ben Stevens seemed to suffer a bad injury that required assistance getting him off the court. Late in the second quarter, Stevens went down hard on the court, clutching at this thigh and visibly in pain. Team doctors were sent to attended to the fallen big man, who had team mates get him back to hid feet where the pain from putting his leg down seemed to indicate a more serious injury. Stevens didn’t return to the game, and with Alain Louis already sidelined, the Alliance enter the final stretch of the regular season a little banged up.
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The Alliance have two home games remaining in their regular season and can still catch the Ottawa Black Jacks and Scarborough Shooting Stars, earning themselves a better post-season matchup in the process. In fact, three of the four remaining games for the Alliance this season are against the two teams they’re chasing.
First though, the Alliance will host the Calgary Surge on August 4th at the Verdun Auditorium, then the Ottawa Black Jacks on August 6th before capping off their season on the road in Ottawa on August 8th and the Scarborough Shooting Stars on August 10th.
