The ominous signs came early Saturday for the UNBC Timberwolves men's basketball team.
From the bad - Frank Olivier Kouagnia's nowhere-near-the-hoop layup in the opening minute - to the worse - Charles Barton's two blatant giveaway first-quarter passes - to the downright ugly - a complete breakdown of synchronicity in the T-wolves' offence that led to a 21-4 deficit after 10 minutes, UNBC's fate was sealed early by the Thompson Rivers University WolfPack.
And when UNBC's comedy of errors was complete, the WolfPack was heading back to Kamloops having handed the T-wolves the most lopsided loss of their two-season CIS Canada West existence, a 92-54 stinker. The 42-point deficit eclipsed a 32-point loss to UBC last February as the worst-ever for UNBC.
"It was a rough game, there's not much you can do in a game like that, they came out hot and got a bunch of shots in our face, hitting not only the shots where they were open but also the ones that were truly contested," said Barton, a fifth-year forward who started his CIS career at TRU.
"Our offence was stagnant and we didn't move the ball around and we paid for it. Last night we were a bit stagnant but at least we were getting stops. Tonight we didn't get those stops."
Ta'Quan Zimmerman was a force for TRU, picking up a game-high 20 points. He went 9-for-9 from foul territory and hit three treys. Brett Rouault was equally effective, hitting 7-of-12 from the field with four threes. Jeff Chu was the only T-wolf in double point figures with 13.
The win evened TRU's record at 2-2, while the T-wolves, who beat Manitoba on opening weekend in Winnipeg, are at 1-3.
WolfPack head coach Scott Clark has been in the CIS for eight years and he knows how the T-wolves players were feeling as they rode out the lingering pain of their loss on the stationary bikes at the Northern Sport Centre.
"On any given night it can happen to guys and what happened tonight is not going to define those kids or that team," said Clark. "Last year we were down 23-1 at the quarter to UBC. There are those nights and you have to move past that and I'm sure they will. They're going to bounce back. It's just that tonight, things went our way."
At times, the T-wolves looked like they were trying to distribute the ball through a blackberry patch. Even with the game out of hand in the fourth quarter the WolfPack kept coming at them. TRU guard Troy Grant put the exclamation point on a forgettable evening for the partisan crowd of 458 at the Northern Sport Centre for 458 when he pounced on UNBC forward Gagan Sahota, setting up a breakaway steal and easy two points. It was a night when the T-wolves could do nothing right, in sharp contrast to their 62-52 loss to TRU on Friday.
"We were obviously frustrated with the outcome, there was a lid on the bucket early and we got discouraged and packed it in a little bit and that was unacceptable," said T-wolves head coach Todd Jordan. "We didn't shoot the ball well this weekend and it was as much their defence that caused a big part of it and the other part was missed a lot of open shots and lost our confidence."
