VANCOUVER – The UBC Thunderbirds (2-2) head north to open week three of the Canada West campaign, gearing up for a two-game showdown against the UNBC Timberwolves (3-1) this weekend in Prince George. The action is scheduled to begin Friday, November 15 with an 8:00 p.m. tipoff followed up by a Saturday, November 16 meeting and a 7 p.m. start time at the Charles Jago Northern Sports Centre.
It's been nearly 10 months since the two programs last met on UBC's Point Grey campus in January of this year where it was the hosts coming away on top with scores of 94-75 and 88-73.
Last Action
The 'Birds will be looking for some bounce back results following back-to-back setbacks in their home opening weekend against the U SPORTS No.4 ranked visiting Calgary Dinos. Friday night's contest was a roller coaster thriller that came down to the last possession and a Calgary bucket to edge UBC 81-79.
Jadon Cohee led the way for UBC on Friday night scoring 17 points and adding eight assists while
Manroop Clair and
Grant Audu chipped in with 16 and 15 points respectively.
The Saturday night rematch saw the visitors secure an 80-70 victory, once again it was Cohee leading the charge with 20 points and six rebounds while Zach Moore and
Grant Shephard added 13 points each.
The Timberwolves meanwhile, are coming off consecutive road wins against the Trinity Western Spartans. In last Friday's 100-87 victory it was guard Vova Pluzhnikova who just missed recording a double double with his 26 points and nine rebounds while fellow guard Tyrell Laing poured in 23 points to help the cause.
In Saturday's 88-86 victory the two scorers reversed orders with Laing leading the way thanks to his 23 points while Pluzhnikova added 18 points to go along with seven rebounds.
Coach's Take
UBC head coach
Kevin Hanson says his team needs to regroup and overcome a couple recent hurdles which includes an emotional last second loss to Calgary last Friday.
"I still think we're in a bit of a transition phase," added Hanson. "With the lineup that we have now we're trying to find our identity, Calgary is a very good team with a lot of older players on it and on the Friday night certainly I thought that was our game. However, we didn't get off to great starts two nights in a row, we did some good things in the middle of both games but had some hiccups in the fourth frame. There certainly were some positive signs and it showed that we can play with one of the best teams in the country."
Hanson also looked ahead to size up this weekend's competition against UNBC.
"They're obviously pretty excited winning on a last second layup ahead of the buzzer against Trinity Western University, so their off to a great start. They're hungry with a few veteran players, fourth and fifth year guys, they split against Victoria a couple weeks ago and they've always played us strong. We're on the road again and we'll have to play well, they play a ton of zone so we're going to have to hit some outside shots and we'll want to dictate the tempo. We were progressing there defensively but we'll have to find a way to stop them from scoring as they have two prolific scorers averaging in the mid-twenties per game so we're going to have to do a good job on those two perimeter guys. Bottom line, we need to make sure we keep improving and try to find our identity and finally play like the team we want to be."
