The first task for the University of Victoria Vikes women鈥檚 basketball team was to get on a plane out of Victoria International Airport.
鈥淲e鈥檒l make it there,鈥� said Vikes head coach Dani Sinclair, almost with a sense of relief.
鈥淭here鈥� is Regina, a city that isn鈥檛 thrown into a tizzy when facing regular Canadian winter conditions.
The Vikes open their best-of-three sa国际传媒 West playoff quarter-final series against the University of Regina Cougars tonight. Game 2 is Friday night in the Saskatchewan capital and Game 3, if required, will be there on Saturday evening.
As tenuous as the travel day was, the job only gets harder upon arrival. The Cougars, ranked No. 6 in the U Sports national top-10 poll, were 17-3 in conference. The unranked Vikes were 12-8 in the regular season.
The clubs, however, split the regular-season series in January on Ken and Kathy Shields Court at CARSA Gym. The Cougars demolished the Vikes 85-50 in the first game before UVic rallied for a last-basket 70-69 victory the next night in one of the biggest responses and turnarounds from one night to the next in recent team history.
鈥淭he Cougars are one of the best teams in the country for a reason. But we know they are beatable,鈥� Sinclair said.
There were myriad lessons to be learned from the whiplash turnaround from the first game to the second last month.
鈥淩egina has a lot of weapons, but we limited them in that second game in the regular season,鈥� Sinclair said.
鈥淭hey have four or five players capable of scoring 20 points, and we know we have to limit that and can鈥檛 let that many players get that many points. We can鈥檛 let them hit on all cylinders. We have to deny a few of them. They are big so we have to limit their second-chance baskets.鈥�
It comes down to fundamental basketball for UVic.
鈥淚t鈥檚 defence and rebounding that we have to do well,鈥� Sinclair said.
鈥淚t鈥檚 simple. There are no secrets, especially this time of year. You have to be playoff tough.鈥�
The X-factor in the series is UVic shooting guard Amira Giannattasio, who finished her regular-season career as the third all-time scorer in Vikes team history, and who can single-handedly change the trajectory of a game with not only her blazing outside shooting but also her sharp cuts to the hoop.
"They [Cougars] are not going to let her score 44 points,鈥� Sinclair said.
Giannattasio did that twice this season to break the former UVic record of 42 points in a game previously held by two-time Olympian Carol Turney-Loos. The only better performances in sa国际传媒 West history were Calgary Dino Meagan Koch鈥檚 49 points in 1996, Koch鈥檚 45 points in 1995, and former SFU Clan star and two-time Olympian Teresa Kleindienst鈥檚 45 in 2002.
鈥淩egina will be focusing on Amira,鈥� said Sinclair.
Which means secondary scoring will be crucial for UVic. It was as well when the Vikes defeated the Fraser Valley Cascades 80-61 in the single-loss elimination, first-round conference playoff game last Friday at CARSA Gym. Giannattasio scored 26 points while Morgan Roskelley scored 15 and Calli McMillan 12.
The Cougars, meanwhile, received a first-round playoff bye.
鈥淲e got our jitters out of the way last weekend,鈥� said Sinclair, hoping Regina starts out with a few tonight.
This is the sixth consecutive season that UVic has advanced to the quarter-final stage of the playoffs.
The Vikes men鈥檚 basketball team was eliminated from the sa国际传媒 West playoffs last weekend with the 95-68 first-round loss to the University of Lethbridge Pronghorns.
