Nathan Yu had a brilliant season. Given the chance, he'd swap his individual accomplishments for a championship ring.
At the recent Canadian Interuniversity Sport men's basketball nationals in Halifax, Yu and his UBC Thunderbirds settled for a bronze medal when they beat the University of Saskatchewan Huskies 111-95 in the consolation game. Earlier, in the tournament semifinals, the top-seeded T-birds were clipped 74-72 by the Trinity Western University Spartans, a team they hadn't lost to all year.
The Spartans overcame a 16-point second-quarter deficit and won on a three-pointer by Kyle Coston with 11.6 seconds left on the clock.
"Obviously we were really disappointed," said the 21-year-old Yu, a fourth-year shooting guard who grew up in Prince George. "All season, all we talk about is preparing for that championship game. We've been there for the last two years so it was really difficult to take when we lost that semifinal game. But our three seniors -- Alex Murphy, Brent Malish and Josh Whyte -- they really picked us up for that bronze-medal game. No one wants to play in that game but I thought we all did a pretty good job playing one last game for our seniors. We all played really well."
In the 2010 CIS championship tournament, the Thunderbirds were silver medalists after a 91-81 loss to the Huskies in the final. In 2009, the Carleton Ravens denied the T-birds the national title by beating them 87-77 in the big game.
While the Thunderbirds are always a power, they haven't grabbed national gold since 1972.
This season seemed to be their chance to end the drought.
Overall, the T-birds won 31 games and lost just three. In those three setbacks, their combined margin of defeat was five points.
Yu himself, as mentioned, was a star. At the beginning of the season, he told coach Kevin Hanson he wanted to be the first player off the bench instead of a starter. Hanson granted him his wish and the strategy paid huge dividends. Yu scored 435 points, a total that placed him behind only Whyte, who hit for 585. From three-point land, no UBC player was more dangerous than Yu, who drained 54 treys in 34 games. Each contest, he averaged 21.3 minutes of court time.
"It was just pure confidence," said Yu, who helped the Duchess Park Condors win the provincial double-A championship in 2006, his Grade 11 year. "I've been playing here [at UBC] for four years now. My job was to come in and provide some scoring and a spark off the bench every game and it worked out for me during the year. I was pretty successful at it."
Next season, Yu will be in his final year of playing eligibility and will likely be a starter. He's excited about having that responsibility and trying to land the Thunderbirds in the promised land for the first time in 40 years.
"We're almost there," he said in reference to winning the CIS title. "We're just one lucky bounce away, one lucky rebound, one shot away from getting there. I'm going to dedicate the summer to make myself better and hopefully leading the team next year."
Yu, six-foot-two and 190 pounds, has a hard time believing he's nearing the end of his university playing career.
"I was just thinking back to the days I was playing at Duchess," said Yu, who is working toward a geography degree at UBC. "It's amazing to think my basketball career has come all this way to UBC and my fifth year. It's been a fun ride. I just recently got my Hong Kong passport so I'm going to try to play professional in Asia after I'm done here, so it's not over yet. I would like to keep on playing for as long as I can."
