The UBC Thunderbirds will open their Canada West regular season by visiting the Regina Cougars for a couple of weekend contests beginning Friday, November 1 with a 7 p.m. tipoff while the return affair goes Saturday, November 2 also at 7 p.m. PT at CKHS, University of Regina.
The squad's will be meeting for the first time in nearly two years dating back to early December, 2017 when the T-Birds won both games on home court with scores of 96-73 followed by an extra time thriller that saw a 98-92 overtime triumph for the hosts.
Last Action
The T-Birds closed out their pre-season schedule with a 3-3 record against Canada West and U SPORTS competition, culminating with a convincing 123-81 victory against the visiting MT. Royal Cougars last Friday night. Fifth-year guard
Jadon Cohee led by example in scoring a game high 39 points, highlighted by shooting 55 percent from beyond the arc in hitting six of his 11, three-point attempts.
Grant Audu contributed 26 points while
Manroop Clair and young first year power forward
Toni Maric added 11 points each.
Joining Maric as a fellow newcomer to the blue and gold is key sharpshooting addition
Zack Moore. The 6'5" native of Bellevue, Washington heads north as a fourth-year transfer out of the University of California, Santa Barbara and should be a welcome addition to the T-Birds attack.
(More info on the 2019-20 T-Birds recruits)
https://gothunderbirds.ca/news/2019/10/28/mens-basketball-zack-moore-and-toni-maric-join-the-ubc-thunderbirds.aspx
The Cougars meanwhile finished their pre-season with a 4-5 record against U SPORTS competition and in their last action managed a 78-74 win against Memorial University. Third-year forward Carter Millar scored a team high 20 points with some efficient field goal shooting going six for seven from the floor including three for three from three-point land.
Coach's Take
Thunderbirds head coach
Kevin Hanson is fairly pleased with how his team is trending coming out of the pre-season.
"We treat the pre-season like the dress rehearsal and it certainly exposed a lot of key areas that we need to address," said Hanson. We've tried to approach those concerns over the last week and a half and we're hoping to make sure we play some better basketball. There's two sides and certainly we can score the ball but we've also had our struggles defensively so we've made some adjustments and hopefully we benefit from those tweaks in short order."
Hanson also looked ahead to what he expects from this season's edition of the Cougars
"The Cougars have had a nice pre-season as well, they've won some close game and all nine of their games we're on the road which isn't easy. This will be their home opener, so they'll be fired up as Regina is always a tough place to play and of late their strengths have matched our weaknesses. It will be an interesting matchup and we'll have to battle, we've got a good game plan going in and I'm sure there will be some good basketball on display."
