He stepped out of the shadows and proved to be one of the purest shooters in B.C. college basketball. Now, it's all but certain Sebastien-Kevin Louis will take aim for a new team next season.
Louis, a guard for the UNBC Northern Timberwolves for the past two seasons, has informed coach Todd Jordan he's "95 per cent" sure he'll return to his hometown of Montreal to play for the Concordia University Stingers in 2011-12. The Stingers compete at the next level up, Canadian Interuniversity Sport.
"For him, it's a chance to play at home," Jordan said. "He really enjoyed Prince George and liked the team and liked being here but, for him, it is a long way from home and I think that was a big contributing factor. He wanted to be back closer to home again and it's a little cheaper for him to live where he's going to school in his backyard."
Louis was recruited into the UNBC program by former head coach Mike Raimbault. In 2009-10, a year in which UNBC's guards led the team to a national championship title, Louis found himself down on the depth chart and didn't play much. This past season, under Jordan, he received much more court time and gave some dazzling performances. At the B.C. Colleges Athletic Association provincial championship tournament, he helped the smallish T-wolves to a second-place finish and was picked as an all-star. Louis, who was in his fourth year of eligibility, was also one of the club's top players at nationals.
"I think he was a guy that, had he stayed, he would have had a shot at being one of the top two or three scorers in our league," Jordan said. "He shoots at an extremely high percentage and he was a really efficient scorer for us in the minutes that he was out there. That is definitely going to be tough to replace. But looking at the roster we have coming in next year, we've got guys that will step in and fill some of those voids in different ways. I still feel pretty comfortable moving forward with who we've got coming in."
The Timberwolves had already lost All-Canadian guard Inderbir Gill and three-point magician Matt Mills to graduation. Next season, their backcourt minutes will be eaten up by veterans like Francis Rowe, Joel Rybachuk and Sam Raphael and rookie Billy Cheng. The six-foot-two Raphael has been used mostly as a forward the past two seasons but, with big bodies like Kevan Madsen (six-foot-nine) and Gabe Aubertin (six-foot-five) stepping into the lineup in the fall, Raphael will be able to use his skills at a more natural spot.
In the big picture, the T-wolves will play a new style, one that's not so dependent on outside shooting.
"We'll be quite a bit different in that respect," Jordan said. "This year we were extremely talented but with our overall lack of length and size we had to be pretty mistake-free on the defensive end. While we lose some very talented scorers and some very skilled guys, in other ways we're going to be much improved. We'll get a lot more second-chance opportunities because we'll be longer and bigger."
