It took the UNBC Timberwolves a full quarter to adjust their sights but once their three-point attack came to life the Trinity Western Spartans didn’t have a hope.
Not with Marcus MacKay firing bombs.
The T-wolves and Spartans met Saturday night at the Northern Sport Centre in the second game of a Canada West men's basketball doubleheader. The Spartans had kept it close, trailing by three at the half, but had no answer for MacKay. He hit three treys before many of the 700 spectators at the NSC got back to their seats from the intermission, a sign of more to come for the Timberwolves.
They rolled to an 85-70 victory, sweeping the Spartans in the weekend set.
In the absence of Austin Chandler, who went down with a knee injury Friday in the T-wolves’ 80-71 win over TWU, the T-wolves leaned heavily on third-year-forward Vaggelis Loukas, a 22-year-old from Athens, Greece. He played 31 of the 40 minutes and came up with 19 points, second only to MacKay’s 26, and also hauled in eight rebounds.
“It was a good day, the shots fell down, and that was important for me because Austin is a huge part of our team,” said Loukas. “Markus gave us a great boost and we didn’t stop pushing forward. We scored 33 points in the third quarter and that gave us the win pretty much.”
They outscored the Spartans 33-15 in the third. The T-wolves went 2-for-11 in the first quarter from beyond the three-point line but hit nine of 23 attempts after that and it made all the difference.
UNBC guard Rhys Elliott was his usual dependable self, finishing with 18 points and four assists. Fellow guard James Agyeman, a transfer from Toronto, led the T-wolves with 10 assists.
Max Vitala was the high shooter for the Spartans with 12 points.
“Once our threes go in it takes the pressure off our offence and that makes the game easier, defensively and offensively,” said the 22-year-old Agyeman.
“We kept pushing and kept getting open shots and eventually they’re going to fall and that’s what happened in the third quarter. We’re a small team so we need to push the pace and shoot the threes with confidence and hopefully it goes in.”
Loukas said their blowout 110-56 loss the previous week to Alberta taught the T-wolves how not to play the game.
“We learned our lessons last week and we played hard on defence, which we didn’t do last Saturday against Alberta,” Loukas said. “Getting two wins on our home court was great for our confidence, now we know we can do it. Coming from four defeats, and some of them were real close, we really needed these two wins to believe in ourselves.”
The back-to-back wins marked the first time in two seasons the T-wolves have accomplished that feat in U Sports, formerly known as Canadian Interuniversity Sport. “Obviously we had a real tough schedule to start and we’ve been dealing with some injuries and I’m really proud of the boys to get this done,” said T-wolves head coach Todd Jordan, now in his seventh season at the helm at UNBC.
“I thought we got really good looks in the first half and the way we play, we’re a three-point-shooting team, we’re small and have to space people out and move the ball.
“We needed to get this done this weekend to kind of keep ourselves in the mix of things. Any time you win a couple of games, guys start feeling a little better. Now we have to make sure we don’t get too confident.”
Now owners of a 2-4 record, the T-wolves will be in Abbotsford Friday and Saturday to play the Fraser Valley Cascades (2-2).
