VANCOUVER – Led by their two seniors who played the last home game of their careers on Saturday, the UBC Thunderbirds captured Canada West bronze and gave themselves a good chance at a CIS wildcard berth with a 78-68 win over the Simon Fraser Clan at War Memorial Gym.

The T-Birds never trailed on Saturday, but the Clan was able to recover from a tough first quarter to give UBC a run for its money. A Sean Burke three-pointer tied the game at 48 with 4:20 left in the third quarter, but Balraj Bains, Nathan Yu and Josh Whyte all completed three-point plays from the free-throw line over the next two minutes to put the lead back in T-Bird hands. UBC was up four points at the start of the fourth quarter, and an 11-3 T-Birds run beginning with just under five minutes remaining in the game all but sealed the win for the home side.

Fifth-year forward Kyle Watson helped UBC win the battle on the glass with a game-high 12 rebounds in his final game at War Memorial Gym. The T-Birds' other fifth-year player, Blain LaBranche, followed up a tough shooting performance last night against Saskatchewan with a game-high 23 points tonight on 9-for-16 shooting.

"Last night I couldn't really sleep because I was embarrased about my performance, and I think a lot of guys on the team were," said LaBranche. "We just wanted to come out and prove that we are a better team than we were last night."

After giving up 27 first quarter points to the Huskies on Friday, the T-Birds came out looking like a new team defensively against the Clan. UBC outscored SFU 16-8 in the quarter, holding them to 22.2 per cent shooting. The Clan were 0-for-7 from three-point range in the frame.

"Saskatchewan hit five threes in the first quarter last night and that put us on our heels, so getting off to that 10-0 start today was a big difference in the game," said UBC head coach Kevin Hanson.

SFU's long-range fortunes turned around in a big way after the opening quarter. They were 8-for-9 from beyond the arc in the second and third quarters, never allowing UBC to pull away too much. They couldn't keep up that pace in the fourth however, as they went 1-for-5 in the final frame.

Matt Kuzminski led the Clan with 22 points and five assists, and shared the rebounding lead with Tallon Milne at five boards each.

With the win, the T-Birds have a good chance at getting the CIS wildcard nod, though they won't know for sure until next weekend after all conference playoffs have been completed. However, if they do get a shot at the CIS tournament, Hanson said that his squad would like a chance to avenge their loss to Saskatchewan.

"I told the team last night that even Muhammad Ali got knocked out a couple times, but he got back up and started to fight again, and that's something we have to be ready to do," Hanson said. "If we're fortunate enough to get that wildcard, as an example we can look at the Olympics (men's hockey tournament) where Canada lost to the U.S. in the first round. It would be a great scenario to for us to have that same chance in two weeks."