VANCOUVER – The Thunderbirds hit the century mark for the first time this season in their final home game of the fall semester, dropping 100 points on UBC Okanagan in a 30-point win.
 
The final score belies how close the two teams were at halftime. The T-Birds were up by just eight points heading into the break, in large part due to shooting just 2-18 from three in the first half. But the 'Birds stuck to their style of play, and eventually the shots started to fall in the third and fourth quarters.
 
"We're still trying to get everyone used to the rotation," remarked UBC head coach Phil Jalalpoor. "We used a lot of guys in the first half, but the idea is that we play intense in our shifts…we want to play defence and we want to get out and run.
 
"At halftime we knew we'd had a lot of good looks, and we just had to stick with it and execute, and also not let the offence impact our defence. That's kind of the process for the next week."


 
Nikola Guzina led the way for the T-Birds with 23 points and 13 rebounds in a dominant showing. Nylan Roberts also double-doubled with 18 points and 11 boards off the bench, while Toni Maric provided a season-high 12 points along with five rebounds and five assists.
 
Jalen Shirley had a strong performance for the visitors with 17 points and seven assists. Isaak Moore was cooking in the midrange with 15 points to go with three boards and three dimes.
 
Guzina started the night strong with a couple of forceful buckets inside, before Holt Tomie hit a three-pointer to make it 9-2. A couple of triples from UBCO's Gudmund Rothing cut the lead to 13-10, which began a trend of the Heat continuing to hang around and not let UBC get too far out in front throughout the first half.
 
Jacob Antchak made an impact off the bench as he had his biggest performance of the season, scoring six of his eventual season-high 11 points in the opening frame. The T-Birds were up 24-17 after 10 minutes.


 
Again, the Heat fought back early in the second, with Lamine Conde and Moore hitting a series of jumpers to try and claw their team back into things. Conde provided a big highlight as he hit a triple to cut the deficit to six points, and then blocked a UBC three-point attempt on the other end.
 
An Edouard Gauthier and-one right at the end of the first half helped quell a little of the UBCO momentum, but there was still plenty of work to do for the T-Birds in the second half.
 
The big advantage they had throughout the night was their inside scoring, as they racked up 60 points in the paint by the end of the game. Combining the stats from their game the previous night against UVic, the Thunderbirds outscored their opponents in the paint 112-40 over the course of the weekend.
 
"Credit to the guys and their finishing, and credit to the guards for setting the guys in there," said Jalalpoor when asked about that trend. "That's the threat that we want to create, and if teams start adjusting then we'll kick it out and have shooters out there. It's that inside-outside perspective that we want to build."
 
Maric helped power some of those paint points to begin the third, taking an inbound pass under the Heat's basket and immediately spinning into a hook shot. He then grabbed a steal on the other end and took it downcourt before dishing to Gus Goerzen for a layup.


 
That made it 53-37, but the Heat responded with seven straight points to force a UBC timeout, capped by a Shirley transition layup. But the T-Birds then embarked on another run of their own, with Gauthier and Raj Dhadda hitting from the outside, and Guzina and Maric scoring on the inside, as the lead ballooned out to 19 points by the end of the third.
 
The Thunderbirds were able to cruise to the finish from there, with Roberts hitting four three-pointers in the final frame and Gauthier putting the exclamation mark on the contest with a putback layup on UBC's final shot to make it 100 points.
 
The 'Birds now will take a short break from Canada West action, but they will be back out on the court next Saturday when they head to Simon Fraser University. The latest edition of the Buchanan Cup tips off at 7:00 p.m. at SFU's Burnaby campus on November 15.