Vikes hoops teams seek to silence WolfPack

Both University of Victoria Vikes basketball teams get back to work tonight and Saturday as the Canada West season returns to action with the locals playing host to the Thompson Rivers WolfPack at CARSA gym.

Coach Craig Beaucamp’s men’s team (6-4) hopes to build off five wins in their last six regular-season outings against a WolfPack team (5-7) that has won three straight.

“Thompson Rivers is playing some really good basketball right now, they’ve won three straight Canada West games and look like they are starting to gel as a unit, so we will have our hands full this weekend,” said Beaucamp, whose team won two of three exhibition games at the University of Laval during the holidays after an impressive split against No. 3 Alberta prior to the break.

“Defence was the one area that we thought we had to get better in as the first half progressed. We’ve gotten better at that and now rebounding is the big area for us, there is a direct correlation between the top rebounding teams in our conference and the teams that finish at the top of the conference,” he added.

In the WolfPack, the Vikes will face a team that features the second and third best rebounders in the conference in Luke Morris and Mike Rouault.

The Vikes take to the floor at 8 p.m. tonight and 7 p.m. on Saturday, following the women’s games.

Coach Dani Sinclair’s women’s Vikes are also 6-4 on the season and meet the 7-5 WolfPack at 6 p.m. and 5 p.m., respectively.

The Vikes ended 2017 with two big wins over then No. 10-ranked Alberta in Edmonton and, like the men, won two of three during a holiday tournament at the University of Toronto.

“You are always trying to look ahead, so as important as those wins were they mean nothing if we don’t perform in the second half of the season,” Sinclair said of the victories in the Alberta capital. “We have to look at what is in front of us. We have a difficult weekend against a really tough, up-tempo team that can get hot in [Thompson Rivers].”

Tonight’s games are part of Dairyland’s Nights of Lightning in which fans are encouraged to wear black to create total darkness as the Vikes “bring the lightning.”