VANCOUVER – A spectacular second quarter propelled the Wilfrid Laurier Golden Hawks to an 83-65 win over host UBC at the Thunderbirds' own pre-season men's basketball tournament at War Memorial Gymnasium on Friday night.
“First half, we panicked,” said UBC head coach
Kevin Hanson. “I thought we worked hard, but we just didn't work very smart at all. All of a sudden, we got down. We started to take chances we don't normally take.”
Doug Plumb (4th, Pitt Meadows, BC) led UBC with 16 points while teammate
Kamar Burke (5th, Mississauga, ON) chipped in with 15.
Kyle Enright hit seven three-pointers in the game to lead Laurier with 21 points.
His shooting from behind the arc sparked a game-changing run in the second quarter.
After a
Balraj Bains (5th, Delta, BC) layup at 8:35 brought UBC to within three points of the Golden Hawks, Laurier went on a 20-0 spurt over the next 4:18, which included four consecutive three-pointers from Enright.
The Golden Hawks opened up a 43-20 lead that ballooned into a 31-point bulge in the third quarter.
“I thought Laurier actually shot the ball a lot better than I've seen teams do in a long time,” said Hanson. “Any time your opponent shoot 11 for 19 three-pointers in the first half, it just set us back on our heels. I said, 'Going into the game, they have five guys on the floor who can shoot the ball. We had to defend the three-point shot,' and we obviously didn't do a very good job of defending the three-point shot tonight."
UBC showed spirit in their comeback attempt, outscoring Laurier in both the third and fourth quarters for a combined 39-29 second-half advantage.
As a team, Laurier drained 16 of its 35 shots from behind the three-point arc and shot 43% from the field, five percentage points better than UBC.
“Defensively, I wasn't happy,” said Hanson. “Our transition defence was poor. We didn't find shooters, we didn't communicate defensively.”
Both teams were playing without their best players. UBC point guard
Nathan Yu and Laurier's Kale Harrison are with Canada's entry at the Pan American Games in Mexico.
“I think decision-making is an issue we have to face,” said Hanson. “As we try to grow, we are trying to find somebody who's going to be a leader at the point guard position. Until we find that, we're going to have to do a lot of work, we're going to have to do it by committee.”
The Thunderbirds' next game at its own three-day tournament will take place on Saturday against Concordia at 7:00 p.m. at War Memorial Gymnasium.
Laurier will face the Fraser Valley Cascades at 5:00 p.m. Saturday's early game will feature Thompson Rivers and Memorial at 3:00 p.m.
Friday's other games saw Fraser Valley record a 100-80 win over Memorial while Concordia topped Thompson Rivers by a score of 77-72.
