The UBC Thunderbirds scored a decisive opening night win over the visiting Lethbridge Pronghorns, taking the game 98-76. After a slow offensive start the T-Birds scored 25 or more points in each of the final three quarters as they led nearly wire to wire.
The Thunderbirds' depth was on display as twelve different players saw the court, with five of them making their UBC debut.
"It's a really good problem to have when you're as deep as we are," said UBC head coach
Kevin Hanson. "We need some leadership on the court from our older guys to help the younger guys with what we do and what we're trying to achieve."
UBC's pair of fifth-year seniors did provide plenty of production on the court as
James Woods led all scorers with 28 points on 11-17 shooting, and
Brian Wallack had a big double-double with 20 points and 13 rebounds.
Fareed Shittu also double-doubled with 12 points, 11 rebounds and 3 steals.
Kymani Pollard led the Pronghorns in scoring with 22 points and 4 steals although he shot just 8-23 from the field. Shae Gibb also played well with 20 points, 5 rebounds and a game-high 6 assists.
Pollard was hot early on with 7 points in the first few minutes but back-to-back dunks by Wallack and Shittu and stifling defence by the T-Birds led to UBC taking a 17-12 lead at the end of the 1
st quarter. The Thunderbirds did a great job getting to the free throw line, shooting 7-10 from the stripe in the quarter.
A pair of big blocks early on in the second frame from
Nikola Guzina and
Micah Jessie helped push the UBC lead to 24-16, but the Pronghorns then went on a 14-6 run to tie things up at 30 apiece.
The Thunderbirds, however, ended the half on a 15-1 run on their own, powered by an alley-oop pass from Woods up to Shittu who slammed it home to a massive roar from the home crowd. Woods scored 12 of his 28 points in the 2
nd to lead the UBC offense.
The back-and-forth nature of the game continued in the 3
rd as the Pronghorns cut the lead to just four points in the first few minutes of the second half, but that was as close as they would get as UBC soon roared back to a double-digit lead.
After rookie
Adam Olsen opened his Canada West account with two straight layups to force a Lethbridge timeout,
Brendan Sullivan hit a half-court buzzer beater to end the 3
rd for his very first bucket as a Thunderbird to make it 70-57 in favour of UBC.
A 10-4 T-Birds run to begin the fourth-stanza put the game pretty much out of reach, as UBC maintained a comfortable lead to close and pushed their advantage over 20 points with back-to-back threes late on from
Tobi Akinkunmi. The Thunderbirds shot just 5-19 from deep overall but still dropped 98 points thanks to shooting 60% from inside the arc and out-rebounding the Pronghorns 50-33.
The two teams will face off again in a rematch on Saturday night. Tip-off is scheduled for 6:00 p.m. (PT) at War Memorial Gym.
