Head coach Todd Jordan wants to inject some youth into the UNBC men's basketball program. The first guy he'd like to add to the depth chart is Billy Cheng.
Cheng, an 18-year-old point guard, was in town on the weekend and had the chance to practice with the Northern Timberwolves. The five-foot-seven Richmond product showed off some of the attributes that made him a provincial all-star for the R.C. Palmer Griffins this high school season, a year in which the Griffins won the B.C. triple-A championship.
"He's extremely quick and, for a high school guy, he's played at a high level," Jordan said. "They won the provincial triple-A title, he's played on the [Basketball B.C.] provincial team for three years. He sees the floor very well, he's able to play off the screen and roll. At this point, where the program's at, we do need to try to bring in a couple younger players because our team is starting to get a little bit older and we want to make sure that we're restocking for the future so he's a guy I think could really help us."
Cheng is also being pursued by three other B.C. college teams -- the Quest University Kermodes of Squamish, the Douglas College Royals of New Westminster and the Langara College Falcons of Vancouver. The Brandon University Bobcats, who compete in the Canada West conference of Canadian Interuniversity Sport, are another team showing interest in him.
Cheng has already visited Quest and Douglas and plans to check out Langara. As for the Brandon opportunity, he'd like to play in the CIS but he's not sure if he wants to jump to that level right out of high school.
In the big picture, Cheng is still a long way from making a decision. But, his experience at UNBC was a positive one.
"It's a great facility and people are friendly here," he said prior to a Saturday shoot-around at the Northern Sport Centre. "It's a good environment -- I like it.
[Playing with the Timberwolves] was good," he added. "I haven't played basketball at that kind of intensity in a while so it was a little tough, different than high school ball. People are much bigger and stronger and more physical."
On high school courts this season, Cheng was among the top talents in B.C. He was R.C. Palmer's starting point guard and was a huge part of the Griffins' provincial championship run, capped off by a 71-63 comeback victory against the Vancouver College Fighting Irish in the game for gold. In the final, played in front of 4,125 fans at the Langley Events Centre, Cheng had 11 points and eight assists. He was later named to the tournament's second all-star team and was picked as top defensive player.
Against the Fighting Irish, the Griffins battled back from a 19-2 first-quarter deficit.
"I thought we were going to be in trouble and then [Grade 10 forward] Jamie [Madewan] stepped it up and hit a couple threes and that got us back," Cheng said. "We calmed down a bit, because in the beginning we were kind of overwhelmed by everything. But we calmed down and just did our thing. [Winning was] very exciting because I've been playing with these guys since elementary school, some of them."
The B.C. championship was the first in R.C. Palmer's history. On the other side of the coin, Vancouver College missed the chance to win provincials for the first time since 1967.
Getting back to the Timberwolves, they had just two first-year team members (guard/forward Dan Stark and post player Josh Jebose) and one redshirt player (Sasha Olekshy) this season.
Next season, Jordan expects to have the majority of his current players back in uniform. The exceptions are graduated guards Inderbir Gill and Matt Mills and forward Kenny Carnes, who will be continuing his environmental engineering program at UBC next school year.
Players who have not yet given Jordan their 100 per cent commitment for 2011-12 include guards Sebastien-Kevin Louis, Francis Rowe and Joel Rybachuk.
"I'll feel a lot more comfortable once those guys do give me their answers but I feel reasonably good about the fact those guys will be coming back," Jordan said.
