They were ranked No. 1 for nationals and matched expectations by winning gold.
That was in 2010.
This year, the UNBC Northern Timberwolves are again the top seed for the Canadian Colleges Athletic Association men's basketball national championship tournament.
So, can they shoot down all their opponents and claim another title?
Veteran guard Francis Rowe is confident they can.
"I think it's been set up pretty nicely for us," said Rowe, whose B.C. champion Timberwolves will play their opening game Thursday in Truro, N.S., against the eighth-ranked Red Deer College Kings. "Obviously being No. 1 is pretty cool. But yeah, I think the way we've been playing -- and we keep getting better every week -- we'll be ready come Thursday and hopefully we'll be in the final by Saturday night."
Back in 2010 in Calgary, the T-wolves got a scare from the Fanshawe College Falcons of London in their first game but then went basically unchallenged. After getting past Fanshawe 76-71, they hammered the Mount St. Vincent University Mystics of Halifax 80-58 in the semifinal round and then dumped the host SAIT Trojans 96-63 in the final.
In the bigger picture, this year marks UNBC's fourth consecutive appearance at the Canadian championship so the team will have experience on its side in Truro. Having a nationally-tested roster should benefit the T-wolves in a big way.
"One of the things going to a national tournament, there are a lot of things you're kind of unsure about -- teams you haven't seen before and different venues and those sorts of things -- and our guys have dealt with that now four straight years," said UNBC head coach Todd Jordan. "That experience is invaluable. We've got guys that have national championship rings and guys that have won and been successful at nationals. We've had a couple experiences that have been not quite as successful so all that knowledge and all that experience definitely is an advantage going against teams that haven't had that."
In 2009, the Timberwolves hosted the CCAA tournament and surprised most observers by finishing fourth. Gold in 2010 was followed by a fifth-place finish last year in Oshawa.
The current Timberwolves feature six players -- Rowe, Joel Rybachuk, Dennis Stark, Sam Raphael, Jose Araujo and Kevan Madsen -- who were part of the 2010 national-championship club.
UNBC's first opponent this year, Red Deer, got a berth in nationals based on its silver-medal performance in the Alberta Colleges Athletic Conference championship tournament. In the ACAC final, Red Deer lost 101-77 to Calgary's Mount Royal University, the No. 2 seed for the CCAA championship. In the Kings' lopsided provincial defeat, they turned the ball over 22 times.
"I think they're a much better team than they showed in that game," said Jordan, who has watched the footage. "They beat some pretty good teams to get to nationals. I mean they beat Keyano in their first round of playoffs. We saw Keyano out in Winnipeg this year and they're a pretty good squad.
"We're definitely going to have to be focused and ready to go to win that game."
Two of Red Deer's better players are third-year point guard Lloyd Strickland and third-year forward Robert Pierce.
"[Strickland] is a solid player," Jordan said. "He's averaging close to five assists a game and if he gets going he's tough. And [Pierce], he's averaging 18 points and 10 rebounds a night so he's a strong kid and a tough match for us."
The game will start at 1 p.m. in Truro, located just north of Halifax. Nova Scotia is in the Atlantic time zone, which means it's four hours ahead of B.C.
If the Timberwolves beat Red Deer, they will meet either fourth-ranked Mohawk College of Hamilton or fifth-seeded Vanier College of Montreal in a Friday semifinal (6 p.m. Atlantic). The championship game will be played on Saturday (8 p.m. Atlantic). All games will be available via webcast (www.ccaamensbasketball2012.ca).
The tournament is being held at the Nova Scotia Agricultural College and gets underway tonight with the CCAA All-Canadian banquet.
