Tale of the Weekend
VICTORIA – The UVic Vikes men's basketball team will play their most important games of the 2017-18 season this week, when they take on the UBC T-Birds in a home-and-home set on Feb. 1 and 2.
It will be Alumni Night inside the CARSA Performance Gym when the Vikes host the T-Birds on Thursday, before the teams travel to Vancouver the very next night for their final game of the regular season. Both of those contests are scheduled to begin at 8 p.m.
As is always the case when the Vikes and T-Birds clash, the stakes will be high this week.
Victoria is currently tangled in a Canada West playoff race that has nine teams battling it out for eight remaining playoff spots. With the conference playing an unbalanced schedule, teams will qualify for the post-season based on their records, but the seeding for the playoff spots will be based on a team's
RPI.
With the Vikes holding a record of 10-8, they are stuck in a log-jam in the standings that makes the potential playoff picture extremely murky. The only thing the team can focus on is taking care of the games in front of them and leaving nothing to chance, in what could potentially be a seven-way tie from seventh to 13th place.
UBC doesn't have to worry about qualifying for the playoffs, their record of 15-3 already ensures that their season will continue past this week, but there is still a lot for the T-Birds to play for. Their RPI of .6056 is third-best in the conference, but they could fall or climb in the standings depending on the results of this week.
The T-Birds swept the Vikes last season. UBC won 82-69 in Victoria before picking up a narrow 93-89 overtime decision in Vancouver the very next night.
Last Time Out
The Vikes earned a hard-fought split on their home court, while UBC won their third and fourth games in a row last weekend.
In a pair of nail-biters, the Vikes defeated the visiting Mount Royal Cougars 100-97 before falling 85-79 on the second night. That was the second home weekend in a row where the Vikes earned a split, putting the team at 4-4 since the holiday break.
The T-Birds strolled into Kelowna and easily dispatched the UBC Okanagan Heat last weekend, picking up wins of 82-55 and 66-48.
By the Numbers
93.3: The T-Birds come into the weekend with the top offence in the league, averaging 93 points per game.
5: While the Vikes may not have a single player near the top in Canada West scoring, their strength is depth.
Mason Loewen,
Scott Kellum,
Justin Kinnear,
Jordan Charles and
Jason Scully all average 10 points or more per game.
34: Between last season and this one, the T-Birds have won 34 of their past 38 Canada West regular season games.
Coach's Take
Craig Beaucamp, Vikes head coach
"It's always an exciting time for both schools when we play each other. There is a long rivalry with a lot of history and some of my fondest memories are games that we have played against UBC over the years."
"We know that they are going to be well prepared, come out and play hard and there is going to be lots of atmosphere in both gyms."
"The thing that sticks out the most is their rebounding, so the biggest things for us are to try and keep them off the glass and not turnover the ball to give them easy baskets."
"You have to be resilient, there has been a lot of mixed emotions and a lot of peaks and valleys within weekends for us never mind from weekend-to-weekend. You have to have a short memory after wins or losses and move onto the next game, try to bring your best performance because if you don't than anybody is capable of beating anybody in this conference."
Game Info
Thursday, Feb. 1 – 8:00 p.m. – vs. UBC T-Birds, CARSA Performance Gym – Watch live on canadawest.tv | Buy tickets at govikesgo.com
Friday, Feb. 2 – 8:00 p.m. – at UBC T-Birds, Vancouver, B.C. – Watch live on canadawest.tv
UBC T-Birds (15-3)
Canada West Standings: 2nd
RPI: .6056, 3rd
PF: 1680
PA: 1343
Last Week: 2-0
Streak: W 4
Last Canada West Title: 2012-13
Last U SPORTS Title: N/A
