T-Birds spoil Vikes’ home opener
No Conor Morgan? No problem for the UBC Thunderbirds.
In their first season after the outstanding five-year career of Mount Douglas Secondary-grad Morgan — the two-time Canada West MVP now playing pro in Spain after leading Canada to silver at the 2018 Commonwealth Games — the Thunderbirds began just where they left off.
That’s beating their cross-strait Canada West hoops rival with the regularity of West Coast rain in November. The latest instalment of UBC’s dominance came Thursday night with an 89-63 victory over the University of Victoria Vikes on Ken and Kathy Shields Court in CARSA gymnasium.
The Thunderbirds have restocked well for the post-Morgan era. Former Canada U-19 starter Jadon Cohee from Langley, an NCAA Div. 1 transfer from Southern Utah, scored 10 points for UBC. Manroop Clair from Burnaby, an NCAA Div. 1 transfer from the University of Hawaii Rainbows, scored 25 points for the Thunderbirds.
It was never really close as U Sports No. 6 nationally-ranked UBC led 42-28 at the half in moving to 2-1 on the young Canada West season. UVic fell to 1-2 ahead of the rematch Saturday night at War Memorial Gym in Vancouver.
UVic could not match UBC’s size advantage Thursday and had no answer for six-foot-10 T-Birds sophomore centre Grant Shephard from Kelowna, who destroyed the Vikes inside with 17 points and nine rebounds. Six-foot-eight Patrick Simon vacuumed up 12 rebounds for the Thunderbirds.
It didn’t help UVic to be without its injured big man, six-foot-eight Hayden Lejeune.
“Shephard definitely hurt us inside,” said Mason Loewen, who led UVic with 18 points.
Another big injury absence was point-guard Scott Kellum and it showed in UVic’s poor ball handling.
“We made a lot of careless turnovers, myself included, and that translated into baskets for UBC,” said Loewen.
That was also an issue hit on post-game by Vikes coach Craig Beaucamp: “We gave away too many easy baskets. That led to UBC’s [scoring] runs and easy points. We got it to within 10 points [55-45 in the second half] but then suddenly their lead was 15 again.”
It’s looking as if the Vikes are the kind of streaky 50-50 team that will win games if they hit their shots and lose the others, much like last season in finishing 10-10 in conference. A mitigating factor Thursday was the injuries, with several of the Vikes playing through pain.
“We had injuries and we battled out there. Yet every team gets banged up, so that’s no excuse,” said Beaucamp.
“We’re going to focus on getting better bit by bit.”
Meanwhile, the UVic Vikes women’s team (2-1) went an epic distance in terms of time played but still tumbled from the ranks of the unbeaten in Canada West in a frenetic 113-108 triple-overtime loss to UBC at War Memorial Gym in Vancouver. UVic shooting-guard Amira Giannattasio had a career night, even by her normally explosive-scoring standards, with 44 points.
The Vikes and Thunderbirds renew their women’s rivalry Saturday at 6 p.m. in CARSA gym.