With files from University of Regina Sports Information
REGINA -
Brent Malish scored a career-high 33 points to lead the UBC Thunderbirds to a 95-59 win over the Regina Cougars on Saturday night in Canada West men's basketball action at the Centre for Kinesiology, Health & Sport.
Malish was 11-for-20 from the field and 9-for-11 from the line while adding a game-high 12 rebounds to register a double-double in just 23 minutes on the floor. The fifth-year forward scored 13 points in the second quarter alone.
"Brent played his best all around game as a Thunderbird in his five-year career. In fact, all three fifth-year seniors were really good all weekend," said UBC head coach
Kevin Hanson. "Alex [Murphy] had was outstanding defensively all weekend and really limited a lot of their top players and Josh [Whyte] was a leader as always for us on both ends of the floor."
Whyte added 14 points for UBC, while
Nathan Yu chipped in with 13 and Murphy scored 10. Murphy led all players with three three-pointers as UBC improves its Canada West-leading record to 18-2.
Marek Downarowicz was 6-for-13 from the field and led Regina with 13 points. Jeff Lukomski and Matt Campbell both had eight points for the Cougars, while Jared Janotta had seven points and a team-leading eight rebounds in a career-high 21 minutes on the floor.
For the second night in a row, UBC came sprinting out of the gates with a huge first quarter. The Thunderbirds led 28-13 after the opening ten minutes and held a 23-point advantage at halftime, and essentially put the game away with 12 consecutive points early in the third quarter.
"Once again we wanted to come out and establish ourselves in the first quarter. We came out with some great defensive intensity which allowed us to make scores in transitions and we set the tone early for the rest of the game," added Hanson. "We're moving in the right direction with playoffs only a few weeks away and now we need to turn our attention to getting ready for Thompson Rivers next weekend."
UBC will close out its Canada West schedule with a pair of home games against TRU followed by two road games at Victoria. The Cougars will be back in action with a Thursday/Saturday home-and-home against Saskatchewan before finishing the conference schedule at home against Manitoba on Feb. 18 and Feb. 19.
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