The UBC Thunderbirds did the right thing, throwing a blanket over Tyrell Laing.
That’s a smart strategy other Canada west teams have tried but failed to accomplish. It’s not easy containing the defending U SPORTS Canada West men’s basketball scoring champion, who came into Friday’s game at the Northern Sport Centre with the second-best scoring average in the league.
It’s no secret what Laing is capable of achieving and the UBC Thunderbirds made it their business Friday to ty to make life miserable for the fifth-year point guard. They hounded him whenever they could and while that opened up more court space and more scoring opportunities for his UNBC teammates it paid off when Laing was held to just 10 points in what turned out an 85-76 UBC victory.
Laing rarely got much time to shoot and when he did get free his shots uncharacteristically missed their mark. He ended up 1-for-12 from the field and made just one of his six three-point attempts. But he was his usual accurate self from the free-throw line, nailing seven of eight, and also picked up five assists.
The T-birds weren’t afraid to play in traffic, scoring 46 of their 85 points in the paint. James Woods led all shooters with 22 points. His six-foot-10 UBC teammate Sukhman Sandhu was also a thorn in the T-wolves’ side with 14 point and 12 rebounds, while Grant Adou also picked up 14 points.
Th star of the game was third-year guard Kyle Foreman. He was a handful all night for the T-wolves and finished with 12 points, nine rebounds and eight assists. UBC led 46-37 at the half and 68-58 after three quarters. Laing’s foul shots got the T-wolves within three with seven minutes left, but Woods and Abou put the game out of reach with some clutch shooting down the stretch.
“We definitely gave up way too many opportunities for them,” said Foreman. “We knew Tyrell really wanted to get going, he was leading the conference, so we tried to shut him down and I think we did a pretty good job overall but some of the other guys stepped up for them.
“But we came together for sure at the end and hopefully next game we can close it out a little bit better.”
The T-birds remained perfect at 7-0 to start the season while UNBC dropped to 2-3.
UNBC senior guard Vova Pluzhnikov used his own dogged determination to generate 16 points, 12 of which came from three-point range. He was also one of the most effective rebounders in the game with nine, eight of which he grabbed on the T-wolves side of the court.
“It was a pretty close game overall, we let them go on a run early in the first quarter and they went up by nine points and from there on it was a tie game,” said Pluzhnikov. “In the end, we went on run and they called time-out and made a couple of good plays.
“They’re a tough team and they know how to play basketball really well.”
Pluzhnikov drew a tough assignment shadowing Foreman, a third-year guard from Washington state who started his college basketball career in the NCAA with Boston University. Pluzhnikov came into the game needing just three assists to break James Agyeman’s all-time UNBC assist record of 313 and he did that with five assists in Friday’s game.
Payton Tirrell had his best offensive output since joining the T-wolves this season and he picked up most of his 20 points the hard way, driving his six-foot-three body in close to the hoop. But it wasn’t enough.
“They’re a tough team and they play real hard and they’re well-coached and for this game we had to pay harder than them and I think we did that but we just didn’t get the win,” said Tirrell. “I think (Laing) shot all good shots and he played really well, other than scoring. He played really well defensively and he was moving the ball and being a vocal leader for us.
“I just felt good. My teammates were passing me the ball in spots where I wanted and I was being aggressive and luckily it was going in tonight.”
The UNBC-UBC men’s rematch starts Saturday at 7 p.m.
