Marie Mongomo and the UNBC Timberwolves have short memories.
But they do remember how the 2017-18 U Sports Canada West women's basketball season ended back on Feb. 8 with an 82-65 sudden-death elimination playoff loss to the Winnipeg Wesmen.
The Wesmen are back in Prince George this weekend to face the T-wolves in their home-opening weekend at the Northern Sport Centre and they aren't planning a warm reception.
After two wins to start the season and a perfect 8-0 preseason the T-wolves intend to keep up their winning habits at the expense of the winless Wesmen (0-2).
"Winnipeg is always difficult, we haven't won against them yet and we still remember that they kicked us out from playoffs last year, so we're a little bit angry about that," said T-wolves head coach Sergey Shchepotkin.
"Winnipeg is always strong and they had two good games versus Victoria (last weekend). They lost both of them (77-76 on Friday, 79-67 on Saturday) but Victoria is a very good team. It's a big challenge for us but we want to get that challenge. Our defence is going to be the key. If we play good defence we have very big chances (of winning), otherwise we're in trouble."
Maria Mongomo says her team will be ready, backed by a home crowd that will include many of their parents. They'll need that moral support to topple a scrappy Wesmen team led by fourth-year forward Faith Hezekiah, who shredded the T-wolves in the playoffs for 24 points, 12 rebounds and five steals.
"They are going to be very tough, they have a coach (Tanya McKay) that somehow when she talks their team just gets energetic and starts playing very hard, so we are going to have very difficult games this weekend," said Mongomo, a 23-year-old native of Las Palmas, Spain in her fourth season at UNBC.
"We will have to be mentally tough to not freak out if a team like this makes you lose your gameplan and what you want to do. Last year we played in the playoffs against Winnipeg and we lost to them and what I remember about that game was we were not as focused and we were frustrated. The team wasn't expecting that kind of game and we weren't able to adapt in that moment and they dominated."
The T-wolves lit it up last weekend in Calgary, outscoring a young Mount Royal Cougars squad 93-61 and 107-59 to start the season. Mongomo was a key factor in both games, collecting 22 points and 10 rebounds in Friday's opener and 26 points and 14 rebounds in the rematch Saturday.
"It was a very good weekend, I liked that everybody wanted to win they all of them gave everything in each situation, it all worked very good for us," said Mongomo. "I feel like those (preseason) games for sure counted. We gained more confidence and we now have a picture of what we are going to do in the season. In general, they are all more confident and have improved and they are less afraid of shooting."
Mongomo was bothered all last season by a knee injury which did not force her to miss any games but limited what she was able to do on the court. She's close to a return to the form that made the 2015-16 conference all-rookie team member as one of the fastest guards in Canada West.
"Basketball is a game that you can adapt, whatever you can't do, you can do another thing and I relied more on my outside shooting and also tried to predict what the other person was going to do when I was defending so I had to do less movement," said Mongomo. "I still don't feel 100 per cent but I will try to be."
Game time tonight in 6 p.m., followed by the T-wolves-Wesmen men's game at 8.
