Talent not necessarily tied to tiers
BOYS BASKETBALL: 2016 Tsumura invitational will feature some of the province’s best regardless of division
Three years ago, the B.C. High School Boys Basketball Association decided to play all four of its provincial championship tournaments, from single-A through quad-A, over a four-day span at the Langley Events Centre.
The most positive trend to emerge from that centralization?
A new respect for the quality of teams and players at every tier.
While the very best teams still hail from the quad-A tier, the gap is closing with purpose. And this past season, you could make a case for the best graduating seniors coming from the triple-A tier.
With all of that in mind, I set about the task of both inviting, seeding and eventually constructing the draw for the fifth annual Tsumura Basketball Invitational. The premise was simple. Put together a draw that reflected this coming season’s very best teams regardless of tier. Not every team I initially asked accepted, but in the end I’m proud to unveil a 16-team field I feel will be the best invitational tournament on the entire 2016-17 calendar when the ball is tipped for three days of action at the LEC on Dec. 8.
In lieu of an actual bracket, we break the field down by halves and quadrants. Opening-game winners play each other in their respective quadrant finals and quadrant winners (A vs. B, C vs. D) play each other in our Final Four for the right to play in the championship final. The seeding numbers are in parenthesis.
For B.C. hoops junkies, there’s plenty to debate all summer long.
TOP HALF DRAW Quadrant A Walnut Grove Gators (1) vs. Sir Winston Churchill Bulldogs (16)
In past seasons, it has been a matchup worthy of a provincial quad-A final. This season, however, Langley’s pre-season No. 1 Gators catch Vancouver’s Bulldogs at the start of a developmental cycle.
Walnut Grove might have the best trio in B.C. in point guard Ty Rowell and forwards Jake Cowley and Brett Christensen. Sparkplug forward Lucas Adams is a newcomer worth watching.
This contest will set the ceiling for what SWC’s exciting 6-foot-5 forward De’Andre Butler will have to battle through this season as the Bulldogs’ leading interior presence. Syris Apdian, another rotation player from last season, will have a similar challenge at guard. Grade 11s Aleksa Marinkovic, Seyoung Choi and Angelo Santiago will all play key roles.
Lord Byng Grey Ghosts (8) vs. Port Moody Blues (9)
If it has been a while since we’ve heard a lot of noise from these two non-traditional powers, the 2016 TBI will change all of that.
The seeding numbers call this the best game of our Sweet 16 and it’s hard to argue.
Byng welcomes back its entire squad, including 6-foot-8 do-itall Nathan Bromige, who averaged 21 points, 12 rebounds and seven assists last season with the B.C. under-17 selects. Byng also marches out 6-foot-7 Declan Herbertson in the post. Port Moody counters with talented senior point guard Kaito Cunningham and 6-foot-6 Grade 11 wing Simon Wei.
Byng is the triple-A team expected to contend for a B.C. title, Moody the quad-A squad ready to make its mark in a very tough Fraser Valley. But the true beauty of this one? No one will be thinking tier classification, just how good a matchup it will be.
Quadrant B Steveston-London Sharks (5) vs. Yale Lions (12)
The 2015 B.C. quad-A champion Lions against the 2016 B.C. triple-A finalist Sharks.
It’s a cross-tier, cross-zone clash that gives both teams a real marker as they embark on their respective 2016-17 campaigns.
In successive seasons, Yale has graduated stars Jauquin Bennett-Boire and Riley Braich and its new core will get an immediate feel for how purposeful its main core of Raejean Hudson, Bradley Braich and Noah Nickel will have to be against the triple-A pre-season No. 1 Sharks, who return four stalwarts from its run this past March to the title game.
SLSS’s 6-foot-9 forward Fardaws Aimaq is one of B.C.’s elite players and when you add forward Pierce Strutt and guards Ahmed Mohamud and Daniel Chen to the mix, you get a dynamic opposition.
Holy Cross Crusaders (4) vs. Lambrick Park Lions (13)
Talented guard play will define both of these title-contending squads this coming season.
Victoria’s Lions, the only double-A tiered school in the field, came within seconds of winning the Vancouver Island title en route to a fourthplace finish in B.C. despite one-half of its dangerous guard duo out with an injury.
Calvin Somers will be back and healthy and set to join twin brother and Island MVP Austin Somers this coming season. As ninth-graders, the pair helped Lambrick Park win the first B.C. double-A title staged at the LEC back in 2014.
Holy Cross, always a contender at quad-A, welcomes back two of its top players from last season in guard Keegan Konn and forward Marcus Browne. Konn excels at a high tempo and is also one of the province’s best shooters. Marcus Garcia highlights a pack of talented 11s who will fit in with the Crusaders’ run-and-gun offence.
BOTTOM HALF DRAW Quadrant C Kelowna Owls (2) vs. McNair Marlins (15)
The Owls won’t be as deep or quite as dangerous as its reigning B.C. title team, which went a perfect 23-0. Yet even though graduation took four of its top seven, Kelowna’s three key returning players are the kind you can build an entire team around.
Grant Shephard, a 6-foot-9 forward and Canadian all-star game selection, is joined by versatile Mason Bourcier and another 6-foot-9 talent in Owen Keys.
The Owls will be the toughest test yet for a young group of Marlins from Richmond.
Talvinder Jagde, Nathan Schroeder and Jovan Dhillon all return from last season’s triple-A B.C. tournament-qualifying team, while another trio of Tejvir Gill, Melvin Panganiban and Puneet Basra all skipped JV seasons in 2015-16 to play senior varsity and thus return as very seasoned Grade 11s.
Lord Tweedsmuir Panthers (7) vs. St. Thomas More Knights (10)
Two of B.C.’s best basketball-football schools will meet less than a week after the Subway Bowl gridiron finale.
The pick ‘em game on this side of the draw, STM returns its 6-foot-5 forward Cam Morris after the Knights made a run to the triple-A Final Four in March. Point guard E.J. Escobedo and shooting guard Richard Galicia are also back, while 6-foot-5 Sajjun Shokar moves up from the JV squad to give the Knights even more size inside.
Tweedsmuir, a Cinderella quad-A qualifier in 2015, missed the provincials out of a stacked Fraser Valley this past season, but appear to be on the upswing.
Point guard Brandon Tabing, and forwards Dilsharan Gill and Gavin Gill are the perimeter-based strength of the team with Braedan Martin and Michael Mugabo the inside presence which will have to react to Morris.
Quadrant D Burnaby South Rebels (6) vs. Panorama Ridge Thunder (11)
The path to the B.C. quad-A championship is especially tough coming out of the Lower Mainland and to that end, Rebels head coach Mike Bell sees the TBI as a great way to open the season.
“I feel it will be key to get our firstyear senior players some tough competition early,” said Bell, whose team narrowly missed the B.C. field in March, but returns a hungry group led by its senior backcourt of C.J. Campbell and Kenan Krupic, as well as Grade 11 centre Jusef Sehic.
Surrey’s Thunder started off hot last season, slumped in the middle, then got red-hot again, coming within a last-second shot of making the B.C. quad-A Final Four. That resumè makes Panorama all the tougher as smooth 6-foot-6 forward Harsimran Bhullar and fellow senior guard Rajan Atker return to lead a promising group of underclassmen.
Tamanawis Wildcats (3) vs. Byrne Creek Bulldogs (14)
The Wildcats, 87-72 losers to Kelowna in the B.C. quad-A final, are back stronger than ever and perhaps ready to finally win their first provincial title led by returning starters Miguel Tomley, Gurman Bhangu, Kyle Uppal and Roop Viria.
Burnaby’s Bulldogs are the underdogs who get to see what the best looks like.
Rising seniors Abdul Bangura, Shane Rafferty and Wei Deng, along with Majok Deng and Bithow Wan, set to enter their Grade 11 and 10 seasons respectively, form the core of a Byrne Creek team that two seasons ago beat quad-A provincially ranked Burnaby South in a major upset.