The sports world is littered with so-called Golden Generations that instead turned to silver, bronze or even rust. The University of Victoria Vikes men’s basketball team, loaded with rookies and sophomores and which returns most of its roster for at least the next few seasons, doesn’t want to end up as one of them.
“We do not want to be seduced [by the team-of-the-future talk],” said Vikes head coach Craig Beaucamp.
Perhaps in that way, the fashion in which the season ended was a necessary wake-up call. The Vikes, considered the ascendant team of the next few years, went into the 2023 U Sports national tournament in Halifax as the top-ranked squad but needed a late three-pointer and a defensive stop to survive a one-point victory over the eighth-seed University of Prince Edward Island Panthers in the quarter-finals before decisive losses to the Atlantic-champion St. Francis Xavier X-Men in the semifinals Saturday and University of Ottawa Gee Gees in the bronze-medal game Sunday left the Vikes as fourth in the nation to conclude the season.
“What we learned over these three days is that our young guys need to get stronger and we need more toughness, like St. FX, Ottawa and [champion] Carleton showed,” said Beaucamp.
The Vikes young players simply got leaned on the last two games.
“Our players need to be in the weight room if we are to take that next step,” said Beaucamp.
“You need to be a tough, hard team to go three games in three days in the national tournament.”
That is not to downgrade the season. It was a good one as the Vikes recaptured the imagination of the city with capacity crowds returning to watch the team sweep to the sa国际传媒 West championship on Ken and Kathy Shields Court at CARSA gym.
“Three years ago we lost in the sa国际传媒 West quarter-finals. Last year we became sa国际传媒 West champions but lost in the first round at nationals. This year we took one step further to the national semifinals,” said Beaucamp.
“We have taken significant steps and are trekking in the right direction. But we want to take that next step. We can’t be satisfied with the steps taken so far. That would be the worst thing to do. We want to win it all.”
UVic hasn’t done that since 1997 when led by the dominance of forward Eric Hinrichsen, the Campbell River product, who went on to represent sa国际传媒 in the 2000 Sydney Olympics. UVic won seven consecutive in the 1980s with rosters that included Olympians Eli Pasquale, Gerald Kazanowski and Greg Wiltjer.
Generational players like that, by very definition, come around only rarely. UVic has its first since Hinrichsen with guard Diego Maffia, who has two seasons of eligibility remaining and it will continue to an exciting and rocking time in CARSA. The awaited ninth national championship in team history could be on the horizon but only if complacency doesn’t slip into the equation. That shouldn’t be a problem with the way the 2023 national tournament ended for the Vikes.
“Winning is hard and there are no guarantees of even getting back to nationals,” warned Beaucamp. “There are 16 other sa国际传媒 West teams planning and working hard right now to knock us off next season.”
He said the Vikes have to work just that much harder.
Meanwhile, the dynastic Carleton Ravens defeated St. Francis Xavier in double overtime in the heart-racing championship game to win their astounding 17th national championship since 2003, their 11th of the last 12 seasons, and their fourth consecutive.
