Skip to content
Join our Newsletter

T-birds rule the roost in Canada West clashes

The smile on Kevin Hanson’s face after the game said it all. Winning is fun, and Hanson, head coach of the UBC Thunderbirds men’s basketball team, has had more reasons to celebrate than just about every bench boss in Canada West Conference history.
image.jpg
UNBC Timberwolves guard Vova Pluzhnikov drives to the net against a UBC Thunderbirds defender on Friday night at Northern Sport Centre.

The smile on Kevin Hanson’s face after the game said it all.

Winning is fun, and Hanson, head coach of the UBC Thunderbirds men’s basketball team, has had more reasons to celebrate than just about every bench boss in Canada West Conference history.

His T-birds put the cap on an 88-66 win over the UNBC Timberwolves Saturday at the Northern Sport Centre to complete a two-game sweep of the T-wolves. That made it 307 career regular season wins for Hanson, just six shy of the all-time record of 313 held by Don Horwood of the University of Alberta. 

After an 18-point win Friday, the T-birds set the tone early in the rematch and reeled off eight treys in the first half for a 50-34 lead.

“We really needed to play well, last week we had a couple of tough ones against Calgary, and UNBC has two real special players in Tyrell (Laing) and Vova (Pluzhnikov) and we had to contain those guys, they’re scoring half their team’s points,” said Hanson.

“We really wanted to challenge our guys, I thought both those guys had real good games last night and our focus was good. We had a chance to get up and down the floor and obviously shot the three better than we have in a long time. They played zone (defence) and it helped us get some more open looks. Our offensive output sort of set them back and they got frustrated when they couldn’t get stops. When we’re scoring, our defence is a whole lot better.”

The T-birds shared the ball well. Sixteen of their first 21 field goals in the first half were assisted and UNBC defenders were chasing the ball most of the night against one of the tallest teams in Canada West. Grant Shephard, at six-foot-10, the tallest of the UBC lot, led the conference in shooting percentage last year and he was particularly troublesome. He hauled in 13 rebounds, 12 on the defensive side, and shot 21 points. Fifth-year guard Manroop Clair nailed four threes on the way to a 17 point game.

Laing managed a game-high 22 points, while the T-birds held Pluzhnikov to 12 points and five assists.

“We came out with a pretty solid gameplan but UBC ultimately used their length to their advantage,’” said Laing. “They’re a talented group, they executed really well and they heated up early. That put us behind and it’s really hard to dig back against a team like that. We tried our best to battle back but we ran out of juice a little bit.

“They were a bit more locked in and made it difficult on me and Vova, which ultimately led to our offence stalling out a little bit and we turned the ball over again, for the whole weekend it was tough in terms of turnover, something we’re going to have to get better at.”

Knowing his team was not going to bounce back from a 76-50 deficit heading into the fourth quarter, UNBC head coach Todd Jordan went to his bench to give his younger players – Colburn Pearce, Chris Ross, Dylon Matthews, Fareed Shittu and Saymon Loki - a chance to gain some valuable experience playing one of the top team in the conference.

“They came out early and made a bunch of shots to start the game and they’re a team with a ton of offensive firepower and they can do that to you,” said Jordan. “At that point it got out of hand early. We had some moments when we scrapped and fought and we had a decent second half against them but it didn’t mean much. Those games we have to take as much as we can out of them, learning-wise, and move on to next week.”

The T-birds and T-wolves now each have 3-3 records.

Earlier Saturday in the women’s game, the T-wolves were unable to replicate the energetic effort that led to a 17-point win over UBC on Friday. The T-birds established themselves early with a physical presence and dominated under the boards, leading to an 80-62 victory.

The T-wolves got themselves in foul trouble early, which took some of the stuffing out their attack with Alina Shakirova and Maria Mongomo each called for violations three times in the first half. Down 22-15 after 10 minutes, the T-wolves had trouble finding the range with their outside shots and UBC pulled away with a 20-8 run in the second quarter for a 42-23 lead at the half.

The T-wolves struggled with their three-point attempts, going 6-for-24, and weren’t much better from the free-throw line (8-for-18), at one point missing six straight from the charity stripe.

 “They definitely made some adjustments we struggled to work through and everything we got we had to work hard for and their stuff looked so easy and that was the biggest change from (Friday) night,” said UNBC forward Madison Landry.

“They also got a lot of second-chance looks and that really hurt us too. We tried t switch things up (on defence) and they just kind of countered everything we were doing. (On Friday) we played so much as a team and came out as one unit and everybody got the ball and everybody was working so hard and it all clicked for us.”

Landry delivered a team-high 21 points for UNBC and had four steals, while Mongomo hit for 17 points and had 12 rebounds.

UNBC coach Sergey Shchepotkin gave rookies Rebecca Landry and Anastasia Soltes some court time in the third quarter and they had their moments of brilliance but wilted under the pressure applied by UBC veterans Jessica Hanson, Hailey Counsell and Keylyn Filewich, who caused turnovers that led to points. Filewich, a fourth-year forward, shot a game high 24 points and had 17 rebounds and five assists, while Hanson finished with 16 points, five assists and three steals.

The win evened UBC’s record to 3-3. The T-wolves (2-4) head to Kamloops this weekend to play Thompson Rivers University WolfPack.