The season for the nationally top-ranked University of Victoria Vikes men’s basketball team took a stunning turn this weekend when generational player Diego Maffia, UVic’s all-time leading scorer and the defending U Sports national MVP, went out with a knee injury and is on crutches and lost for an indefinite amount of time.
The standout fifth-year player out of Oak Bay High was hurt in Friday night’s 75-63 sa国际传媒 West victory over the Trinity Western University Spartans on Ken and Kathy Shields Court in CARSA Gym, being helped off with 16 points in the third quarter after suffering what looked to be a knee-on-knee collision.
The Maffia-less Vikes beat TWU 85-76 on Saturday night before a raucous near-capacity crowd. But the Spartans gave UVic all it could handle and led 46-36 early in the second half before the Vikes regained enough of their composure to rally for a choppy victory to move to 10-0 in conference and 17-1 overall while the Spartans fell to 4-7 in conference. Geoffrey James led UVic with 16 points while Oak Bay-grad Griffin Arnatt and Claremont-grad Ethan Boag each had 15 points. Renoldo Robinson had 17 points and Arnatt 12 on Friday night.
“I would be lying if I said it wasn’t an emotional weekend when your leader goes down,” said UVic head coach Murphy Burnatowski. “It works on you mentally and it showed but our guys snapped out of it because our expectations haven’t changed with this group. Other teams have to play up to our standards. We have a ton of talent and the guys have to believe and they do.”
Without their floor-general and point-guard Maffia bringing the ball up court, UVic’s ball-handling was noticeably shaky Saturday in patches.
“We showed we can win gritty when we’re not as smooth usual,” said UVic guard Sam Maillet, who played pro basketball over the summer with Maffia in the CEBL with the Vancouver Bandits. “Diego was our guy and everyone needs to step up and they did tonight. We are a confident team.”
The team is waiting for the medical imaging results to return Tuesday on Maffia’s knee.
“We have no idea right now,” said Burnatowski.
“[The injury] could be weeks, it could be months or he could be back next game.”
Tana Pankratz and Natalie Allison scored 18 points each as the UVic Vikes women’s team defeated TWU 71-63 on Saturday to move back to .500 in sa国际传媒 West at 5-5 while the Spartans went to 6-5.
“It was a frustrating loss Friday [68-60 to TWU] so we focused on pushing the tempo tonight,” said Pankratz, the fifth-year perimetre player, who will graduate with a degree in child and youth care, but hopes to continue pursuing basketball.
“It’s always a battle against TWU. But we played together as a team tonight and played loose, which will be the key down the stretch.”
The UVic teams are in Prince George on Thursday to take on the UNBC Timberwolves and in Kamloops next Saturday to play the Thompson Rivers WolfPack.
