The power of parity, a balance sought by every league in every sport, is evident in sa国际传媒 West basketball.
The University of Victoria Vikes men’s and women’s teams open the home portion of their schedules tonight and Saturday at CARSA gym against the University of Winnipeg after both UVic teams went 1-1 last weekend in Lethbridge against the Pronghorns.
“I think it was a preview of things to come,” said UVic women’s coach Carrie Watts, of her team’s split in two tight games in Lethbridge, losing 72-71 and winning 71-69.
“There is a lot of parity and the games will come down to who is more disciplined defensively and who can take better care of the ball.”
Ashlyn Day of the Vikes, the defending conference scoring champion, was outstanding in her 2022-23 season debut with 28 points and nine rebounds in the loss and 34 points and 14 rebounds in the win.
“Ashlyn is finding different ways to score and has so many different tools with which to score,” said Watts. “She can rise to the rim or shoot from outside.”
The Vikes will need Day to keeping pumping the points and pulling in the rebounds against 2-0 Winnipeg.
Meanwhile, the defending conference-champion UVic men were ranked No. 1 in the sa国际传媒 West pre-season coaches poll but went out and lost their opener 98-94 in Lethbridge before rebounding to blow out the Pronghorns 88-60 in the second game.
“We didn’t show our teeth on defence in that first game, and we learned that when we aren’t committed to defence, we can lose on any night,” said Vikes coach Craig Beaucamp.
“On the second night we were committed to the defensive side of the ball and the result was different.”
Beaucamp tried to tamp down the hype being placed on his team, both in conference and nationally, by noting that previous-season standouts Scott Kellum and Matt Ellis have graduated and Aaron Tesfagiorgis is sitting out this season.
“I am not sure we are as good as our ranking,” said Beaucamp.
“We lost three key guys from last season and are developing and creating our own identity this season and are playing a lot of younger guys.”
That includes rookie guards Izzy Helman out of Claremont Secondary and Renaldo Robinson from Montreal and freshman forward Shadynn Smid out of Cowichan Secondary.
Who isn’t new is mercurial veteran shooting-guard Diego Maffia, who went off in Lethbridge with games of 29 and 31 points, and last season’s sa国际传媒 West rookie of the year Elias Ralph, who had 15 points in the second game.
“We have a lot of work to do this weekend,” said Beaucamp.
“Winnipeg (2-0) is a solid, old-school team with two bigs. These games are going to be highly competitive.”
