Queen's Men's Basketball defeated the Winnipeg Wesmen 77-76 in their quarterfinals matchup at the U SPORTS Men's Final 8 Basketball Championship Friday afternoon in Quebec City, Que.

The Gaels used a big second quarter to secure the win. After falling behind by four points after the first, Queen's outscored Winnipeg by 12 points in the second to take an eight-point lead into half time. The  No. 7 seed Wesmen cut No. 2 seed Queen's lead to four points heading into the fourth quarter, and had a chance to win the game in the dying seconds, but Cole Syllas, less than a week after his late game heroics in the OUA Wilson Cup, came up with a huge block of Winnipeg's three-point attempt to secure the win for the Gaels.

Cam Bett (Staines-upon-Thames, UK) led all Gaels scorers with 16 points off the bench, powered off three three-pointers, including a long buzzer beater at the end of the first half. Bett was named Queen's Player of the Game.

Syllas (Kingston, Ont.) had 15 points and eight rebounds in the win.

Three other Gaels players scored in double digits in the win, including Aaron Tennant (London, Ont.), who finished with 12 points, and Michael Kelvin (Kingston, Ont.) and Connor Kelly (Brockville, Ont.), who finished with 11 points each.

It was a total team effort for Queen's, with the Gaels' bench coming up big in the win, outscoring the Winnipeg bench 29-11.
 
The Gaels finished the win shooting 43 per cent from the floor and 26 per cent from three-point range, while holding the Wesman to 32 per cent from the floor and 22 per cent from three-point range.

With the victory, Queen's advanced to the semifinals in the U SPORTS Men's Final 8 Basketball Championship, where they will face the Ottawa Gee-Gees, who won their quarterfinals matchup against the No. 3 seed UQAM Citadins. Queen's and Ottawa met twice in the regular season, with the Gaels winning both games by a combined two points, with one win coming in overtime.

The Gaels will face the Gee-Gees in their semifinal matchup on Saturday. March 9 at 6 p.m. Catch all the action on CBC Gem, CBCSports.ca, and the CBC YouTube channel.