Cascades men’s hoops team oozes skill
Fraser Valley lineup determined to show its placement in expansion division was a mistake
They have a proven track record, a national ranking and a conference win streak that is the envy of almost everyone in the Canadian men’s university basketball world.
Yet the one thing Abbotsford’s Fraser Valley Cascades didn’t get when the Canada West realigned its basketball schools this past offseason was respect befitting those accomplishments.
Despite having made three straight trips to the Canada West Final Four, despite winning their final 12 conference games of the 2013-14 season and despite being the thirdhighest-ranked team from its conference in last season’s final national poll, the Cascades were this season placed in the so-called Explorer division with five other recent expansion schools.
Its 20-game league schedule, completely non-interlocking in nature, has meant no future league games against the traditional powers like the University of B.C., Victoria, Alberta and Saskatchewan, all of whom have been placed in the Pioneer division with seven other longer-established programs.
While there was an initial outcry over concerns about its ability to both retain and recruit the best athletes, that dialogue has gotten decidedly less public over the past few months. “I just coach the team,” said Cascades men’s head coach Adam Friesen when asked about the re-designation. “All of that other stuff is for other people to be concerned about.”
And, without question, Friesen has done a terrific job of getting everyone focused on making a run at the CIS national championships this spring, regardless of coming from what everyone deems a less-impressive springboard.
UFV, ranked No. 9 nationally and set to face Calgary’s visiting Mount Royal Cougars (4-4) to open the second half of the Canada West season Friday (8 p.m.) and Saturday (7 p.m.), at Envision Athletic Centre, are runaway leaders in the Explorer Division at 8-0. In fact, included in its current streak of 22 straight conference wins dating to November 2013, was a 20-0 league mark over the 2014 calendar year.
“I knew we probably had our most talented roster, depth-wise, that we’ve had in a bunch of years,” continued Friesen, the former standout guard at Abbotsford’s Yale Secondary, who played collegiately for both Trinity Western and UBC. “But I also knew that we had a bunch of teamfirst guys, guys who would sacrifice their numbers and play as a group. That has made us tough to guard.”
That group features six players averaging double figures in scoring, with no more than four points separating the top scorer from the sixth and no player within the top 18 in the conference.
Two newcomers are the two leading scorers on the team. Massive but nimble forward Nate Brown, a 6-foot-6, 250-pound native of Fresno, Calif., sets the pace at 14.8 points per game, while guard Dominque Brooks, a Seattle native and transfer from NCAA Div. 2 Texas-Permian Basin, checks in at 13.3 ppg, shooting 60 per cent from the field and 48 per cent from beyond the arc.
Kevon Parchment, who led the team in scoring last season at 17.2 ppg, is a perfect example of sacrifice for the greater good. The 6-foot-6 Toronto native, an explosive scorer and rebounder, is averaging 12.1 ppg.
Fellow Toronto native Kadeem Willis, scoring 11.5 ppg, is a versatile 6-foot-5 forward who can shoot the three, and he has teamed well in the front court with veteran Cascades big man Jasper Moedt, the 6-foot-7 Yale Secondary product, who is averaging 10.9 points and 10.8 rebounds per game.
Manny Dulay, the former Surrey-Tamanawis high-school point guard, has returned to his old position this season and thrived, averaging 10.1 ppg, while former Richmond-R.C. Palmer star guard Vijay Dhillon, a transfer from Victoria, has bolstered the backcourt with his presence.
“Jasper is like our backbone, the Tim Duncan of our team,” Friesen said of Moedt, “and Manny has probably made the biggest improvement of anyone on our team. He might not be the most athletic player, but he makes everyone go.”
Friesen, for his part, even manages to draw a positive out of the divisional realignment, one that will see his team play each of the other Explorer teams a total of four times each.
“At some level, the intensity, the physicality and feistiness will pick up,” said Friesen.
“And in that respect, it will be a huge challenge for us. Teams will all come at us 100 per cent. We’re going to see that over the second half, the fact that we will be the hunted.”
But in the end, they have got more than enough built-in motivation to help their cause.
“We do think we got the short end of the stick getting put in the Explorer,” said Parchment. “But we look at that as a positive. It’s helped us with our motivation and our goal, to finish in the top two in Canada West and make the nationals.”