VANCOUVER - Fourth-year guard
Nathan Yu stole the show on seniors night at UBC by leading the Thunderbirds to a 96-83 win over the Thompson Rivers WolfPack on Saturday with 25 points off the bench.
UBC led by as many as 17 points before the WolfPack came charging back late. Chas Kok's shot with 3:44 left on the clock made it just a five point game, but the second-ranked T-Birds were too much down the stretch.
Josh Whyte had six of his 16 points in the final three minutes, and
Nathan Yu iced it with his fourth three-pointer of the night to make it a 92-80 game with just over a minute remaining.
"[Yu] just got into a rhythm and a flow," said UBC head coach
Kevin Hanson. "He's going to get his opportunity to be the guy next year, but he's doing some incredible things, and to have that scoring punch you need that little bit of depth when you go into playoffs, so we are fortunate to have that right now."
Yu wasn't the only UBC reserve to make an impact on Saturday. The T-Birds got 46 points from their bench, compared to 10 for Thompson Rivers.
Melvyn Mayott chipped in 15 points and three assists in his 24 minutes of action.
The WolfPack came out of the gate strong, leading by as many as six points in the first quarter and shooting nearly 57 per cent from the field in the first half. Greg Stewart extended his double-double streak to seven games to end his CIS career, scoring 27 points and pulling down 16 rebounds in a losing effort.
"It's great having a game like that. They gave us their all, and I thought Greg Stewart had an incredible game," said Hanson. "Chas came in and did some great things scoring as well, so it was a good challenge for us tonight and I thought we did a good job."
Kok poured in 21 points for the visitors.
UBC's defence was a big factor in keeping the WolfPack at bay. TRU shot more efficiently than the T-Birds, but also turned the ball over 25 times to UBC's 10.
Whyte had seven steals to go with his 16 points and seven assists. Fellow fifth-year guard
Alex Murphy also had seven assists and 17 points in his final regular season home game as a T-Bird. The same goes for
Brent Malish, who had seven rebounds and three steals on the night.
"Our fifth-year guys have been playing well the last few weeks," said Hanson. "They know it's on the line now, and they are starting to improve and play really well together. This is the most minutes that they've played together over the course of the season. We shortened our bench a little bit and the guys are logging time and finding each other."
At 20-2 on the year, the T-Birds will need only a split in their series against Victoria next week to lock up top spot in the standings, which would give them home court advantage throughout the conference playoffs. Trinity Western finished their season with a win over Manitoba on Saturday to move to 21-3, but UBC holds the head-to-head tiebreaker.
The WolfPack finish the year out of the playoff picture at 4-20.
Regardless of their results in Victoria, the T-Birds will host at least a first-round playoff match-up at War Memorial Gym. The first round gets underway on the week of February 25, with exact dates yet to be determined.
-30-
