The University of Victoria Vikes men鈥檚 and women鈥檚 basketball teams will open their 2016-17 sa国际传媒 West campaigns on the road in Regina against their Cougars counterparts on Nov. 4-5.
The UVic conference home openers at CARSA Gym are Nov. 11-12 against the University of Calgary Dinos. On the men鈥檚 side, the Dinos are the defending sa国际传媒 West champions.
The season will culminate for Dani Sinclair鈥檚 women鈥檚 UVic team with a guaranteed berth in the CIS national championship tournament, which the Vikes will host at CARSA from March 9-12.
Looking to defend their sa国际传媒 West women鈥檚 title from 2015-16 will be the University of Saskatchewan Huskies, who also won the CIS national title. Huskies coach Lisa Thomaidis has been chosen to guide the Canadian team this summer in the Rio Olympics.
Meanwhile, Craig Beaucamp鈥檚 Vikes men will be trying to rebound from a rare season in which they missed the sa国际传媒 West playoffs after making the CIS national Final Four the previous two years.
The coming sa国际传媒 West season will be played under a new format with the previous Pioneer and Explorer divisions no longer in effect. The 17 teams will now play in a single conference, featuring a 20-game regular season schedule.
Each team will play four geographical, or historical, opponents every season, with games against six of the remaining 12 opponents every other season. Over a four-year rotation in the schedule, each team will play every team in the conference at least twice, and will visit every gym in sa国际传媒 West at least once.
The 2016-17 playoffs will feature the top 12 teams playing a bracketed post-season structure over a three-week period. The top four teams will receive a bye in the first week of the playoffs, which will feature four best-of-three series. The following week will consist of four best-of-three quarter-finals, leading to the sa国际传媒 West Final Four hosted by the highest remaining seed.
