The newly-branded Vancouver Bandits didn’t disappoint hometown fans with a dominant first half on their way to a 95-75 win at home opener against the Montreal Alliance. Koby McEwen Ematched his CEBL career-high with five made threes to lead the Vancouver Bandits  to 1-0) on Thursday Night at their new home the Langley Event Centre in front of a large crowd. McEwen, a Toronto native, shot 62 per cent from beyond the arc in his first game with the Vancouver Bandits, finishing with a game-high 22 points to go with six rebounds and four assists.

By R. Paul Dhillon – Editor DESIBUZZCanada

LANGLEY – The newly-branded Vancouver Bandits didn’t disappoint hometown fans with a dominant first half on their way to a 95-75 win at home opener against the Montreal Alliance.

Koby McEwen Ematched his CEBL career-high with five made threes to lead the Vancouver Bandits  to 1-0) on Thursday Night at their new home the Langley Event Centre in front of a large crowd.

McEwen, a Toronto native, shot 62 per cent from beyond the arc in his first game with the Vancouver Bandits, finishing with a game-high 22 points to go with six rebounds and four assists.

Cross-conference bragging rights were on the line Thursday night for the Bandits in the first East vs. West showdown of the CEBL season and the home team didn’t disappoint.

Last year the Alliance were rolling out a bottom-two offence (82 points per game) and bottom-three defence (87.6 points against) on a nightly basis. So, if they don't want to be viewed as easy pickings by the rest of the East, they had to show they've gotten better. But despite Montréal’s moves in the offseason to try and do just that, they came up lot short Thursday against the Bandits.

On the other hand, the local Bandits are starting off the 2024 on a winning note given they didn't fare much better in 2023. If there's a team that understands Montréal's excitement as hosts and the challenges that title presents, it's Vancouver. As last year's host city, the Bandits entered the postseason with an 8-12 record following a regular season marred by complacency. 

The team was definitely talented -- as evidenced by the two-game win streak Vancouver took into the playoffs and then nearly upsetting the Surge in the Conference Finals -- but couldn't get away from their bad habits. Vancouver led the league in turnovers last season, the only team to give the ball away over 16 times a game on average. All those freebies also meant they gave up plenty of easy points, hence why they were the second weakest defence (89 points against per game). 

But to their credit, Vancouver had put in the work to improve their roster heading into 2024. Starting with the addition of Koby McEwen, a former Brampton Honey Badger, who'll bring that sure-handedness the Bandits lacked all of last season. The 2022 champion was a workhorse for the Honey Badgers last year averaging 13.7 points (second on Brampton), 5.4 assists (fifth in CEBL) while leading the league in free throw percentage (82 per cent). Adding a guard with that kind of pedigree and CEBL experience of McEwen immediately upgrades the Bandits' backcourt from where it was a season ago.

What also makes adding the former Sixth Man of the Year so enticing for Vancouver is the pairing it creates with Nick Ward. The 2021 All-CEBL first team member played his first season with the Bandits last year and once again asserted himself as one of the league's top big men. Ward averaged 18.7 points per game (seventh in the CEBL), 7.8 rebounds (eighth) and led the league with 62.2 per cent shooting from the field through 19 appearances in 2023.

The Bandits' team MVP was instrumental in the little success they had last year as Ward spearheaded the league's second-best rebounding team (42.1 rebounds per game). He'll surely be leaned on once again to dominate the glass for Vancouver but at least Ward will have the luxury of a dynamic pick-and-roll partner in McEwen to work with to create more scoring.

Thursday’s win and McEwen’s top performance bodes well for the Bandits in the coming season and could lead to a breakout year for the two top performers for the team.

With Files from CEBL