U Sports (formerly CIS) Championships: 2003-04, ‘05-06, ‘07-08
Canada West Championships: 2006-07, ‘07-08, '11-12, '14-15
Canada West Coach of the Year: 2003-04
CIS Coach of the Year: 2003-04
Overall Record: 454-238 (.656)
Conference Record: 288-147 (.662)
Deb Huband continues to build her resume as the longest serving and most successful women’s basketball coach in UBC history. She is entering her 22nd season behind the bench for the Thunderbirds, a school record, and she is the only UBC basketball head coach, male or female, to have led the school to three U Sports (formerly CIS) championships.
Huband is the winningest active head coach in the Canada West, and is approaching 300 conference triumphs. On February 1, 2014, Huband earned her 400th overall victory as UBC’s head coach, a 56-53 win over Calgary.
In 2014-15 UBC played to a 17-3 record in during the regular season as the Thunderbirds went on to capture the fourth Canada West title under Huband’s guidance. The ‘Birds went on to win the silver medal at the CIS Championship.
In 2011-12 Huband led the T-Birds to a Canada West title and a trip to the CIS Final 8 national championship, unfortunately losing in the final to Windsor 69-53. Overall, it was another outstanding season in which UBC was 15-3 during the regular season and 6-1 in the Canada West playoffs and national tournament.
The 2006-07 and 2007-08 seasons saw Huband lead the T-Birds to identical 21-2 regular season records as they went on to capture back-to-back Canada West Championships in addition to the 2007-08 CIS crown, the seventh CIS title in the program’s history.
In 2005-06, Huband and the ‘Birds went 17-3 in Canada West but were knocked off by the Saskatchewan Huskies in the Canada West championship final. The ‘Birds enacted their revenge by burning through the CIS Final 8 and before beating Cape Breton 56-53 and claiming their second national title in three years.
The 2003-04 season was a banner year for Huband as she led UBC to their first CIS title in exactly 30 years with a roster of 14 that featured 10 players in either their first or second year, a testament to her ability to recruit and coach top young talent.
In recognition for her team’s success, Huband was named the CIS Coach of the Year for the 2003-04 season, after sharing the award at the conference level. After the team’s 2007-08 triumph, she was named the 2008 Basketball BC University Coach of the Year.
Huband came to UBC as the head coach in the 1995-96 season, but she was an assistant on the Point Grey campus before that, helping out from 1988-91.
Huband has served her country for more than a decade in various coaching roles with Canada Basketball. She started as an assistant with the senior national team when they competed at the 2000 Sydney Olympics. Huband served as the mentor coach on the Cadette women’s team that competed at the 2010 FIBA U17 World Championship in Rodez, France.
She helped coach Canada to a silver medal at the 1999 Pan American Games and was the head coach of Canada’s World University Games team at the 2003 Summer Universiade in Korea. She also coached at the 2005 World University Games in Turkey as an assistant, and helped coach the Canadian Under-20 team in the summer of 2006. In 2009, she was co-head coach of Canada’s World University Games team at the 25th Summer Universiade in Belgrade, Serbia.
Huband is one of the few Canadian basketball players to participate as both a player and coach in the Summer Olympics. One of the finest players that Canada has ever produced, Huband joined the national team as a player in 1978 and eventually captained the squad to a fourth-place finish at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics. She was also part of the bronze medal-winning world championship teams in ‘79 and ‘86.
A graduate of Bishop’s and UBC (Masters of Science in Audiology and Speech-Language Pathology), Huband was a three-time U Sports All-Canadian and was inducted into the Canadian Basketball Hall of Fame in 1994. She also holds a spot in the Ottawa Sports Hall of Fame, the Basketball Ontario Hall of Fame and the Concordia Hall of Fame (along with her 1976-77 teammates). She has also been honoured by the Nepean Sports Hall of Fame and has a place on the Bishop’s University Wall of Distinction.
Huband is still tied for the all-time U Sports record for points in a game, scoring 50 with Bishop’s in 1981-82.
