For their first game of the new year, the UNBC Timberwolves couldn't have drawn a tougher assignment.
Tonight in Regina, the UNBC women's basketball team will try to find a way to slow down the University of Regina Cougars, who have won nine of their 10 games so far this Canada West season. Nationally, Regina is ranked second, behind only the University of the Fraser Valley Cascades, who also sport a 9-1 record.
"They are very, very good," UNBC head coach Loralyn Murdoch said of the Cougars. "They're big, they're strong, they're athletic and they've got experience. They've been one of the upper teams for the past few years so they play with a lot of confidence, and especially at home."
The Timberwolves, a first-year team in Canada West, take a 3-7 record into the game. To pull off a monumental upset, they'll have to do a lot of things right.
"We have to control their bigs," Murdoch said. "Their bigs are much bigger than ours. They do a lot of screening so we have to do whatever we can to keep them out of the key and be physical enough with the guard play to keep the ball in front of us. But, at the end of the day, our posts are going to have their work cut out for them to keep them off the boards."
The T-wolves -- with just 10 players in uniform -- also can't afford to get into a run-and-gun style of game with the Cougars.
"We don't have the bench power to play a real up-tempo game," Murdoch said. "They're much deeper substitution-wise so we'd like to play in the half-court and try and slow them down a little bit. If we have an opportunity to run we'll take it, but I don't think it would be in our favour to run for 40 minutes."
Heading into tonight's game, the Timberwolves have lost five in a row.
On Saturday, the UNBC women will have a much better chance to post a victory when they step onto the court against the Brandon University Bobcats. Brandon has a 0-10 record and has scored just 413 points -- fewest in the league.
"It is an opportunity for us to really go in and compete," Murdoch said. "I think it's very important that we go in with some confidence. We do have a few wins under our belt. We've seen some success and we have to play like that."
The T-wolves are in sixth-pace in the eight-team Pacific Division and would need to finish no worse than fourth to get into the playoffs. The University of Victoria Vikes, with a 6-4 record, currently hold that spot so the chances of UNBC stealing a playoff berth are slim. Murdoch said the playoffs are not something she and her coaching staff discuss with the players.
"When it comes to the team and team play, we have to take every game as an individual game -- play to the best of our abilities and define our success outside the box a little bit," she said.
In 2011-12, when the T-wolves were still in the B.C. college league, they were regular-season and playoff champions.
