BCE

The Vancouver Bandits (-105), hosts of Championship Weekend, will take on the one-seed Calgary Surge (-133) tonight with a spot in the CEBL championship game on the line. Tip-off is scheduled for 10:30 p.m. ET/7:30 local at the Langley Events Centre. 

The game will be live on TSN and also available for streaming on TSN+, CEBL+ powered by BetVictor, and on the CEBL Mobile app available on iOS and Android devices.

Tonight’s game marks the fourth meeting of the season between Vancouver and Calgary.  The Bandits took two of three contests against the Surge in the regular season, however, the margin of victory in all three games was under five points.

Vancouver knocked off Calgary by three points on June 3, and five points 11 days later. The Surge got their one and only victory over the Bandits this year, so far, in a 93-88 win at the Langley Events Centre at the end of June. 

Sean Miller-Moore, Stef Smith, and Admon Gilder combined for 54 points in that last contest, while the duo of Nick Ward and Giorgi Benzhanishvili also totalled 54 points of their own for the Bandits. 

Both Vancouver and Calgary are riding late-season win streaks heading into this evening’s Western Conference Final. 

Despite finishing fourth in the western conference, the Bandits ended the regular season by knocking off two eastern conference playoff teams on the road. The Bandits defeated the Ottawa BlackJacks on a Duane Notice game-winning three in target score time on July 27. 

Vancouver then followed that up with a three-point win over the Scarborough Shooting Stars—who will take on the Niagara River Lions in the Eastern Conference Final earlier tonight—on July 30.

All season, Vancouver has relied on big men Nick Ward and Giorgi Benzhanishvili. Ward