BU hoops team needs wins

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This article was published 19/02/2016 (3705 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The final weekend of Canada West conference regular-season games in women’s basketball begins today and its anyone’s guess which schools will grab the final three playoff spots.

Novell Thomas’s Brandon University Bobcats are among five teams — Winnipeg Wesmen, Victoria Vikes, UBC Thunderbirds and Trinity Western Spartans being the others — vying for said berths.

The BU bench boss has reviewed the tiebreaker formulas, but with a plethora of different scenarios that could unfold over the next two days Thomas said, “You can be looking at it for four hours and still be at the same spot.”

He’s bang on.

Winnipeg (8-10) leads the pack of teams jockeying for the playoffs and can net a post-season berth with a victory tonight or Saturday in Vancouver against UBC (7-11). The Spartans (6-12) are also still alive and figure to get to eight wins; they visit the 1-17 Lethbridge Pronghorns.

The Bobcats (7-11) open up the biggest weekend series in program history tonight when they travel to the B.C. capital to play Brandon native Paige Thomson and the Victoria Vikes, who are also 7-11.

Brandon has lost 14 consecutive games against the Vikes, with its last win — 65-52 — coming Nov. 30, 2003, but two victories will earn the Bobcats their first trip to Canada West playoffs. Earn a split and a myriad of tiebreakers will come into play that could see BU in or out of the playoff field. Lose both games and Brandon is likely out.

Despite the muddled situation, Thomas said having a chance to clinch a playoff berth on the final weekend is something he would have taken before the season started.

“The goal has been to make the playoffs since the first week of the season,” he said. “Did I think we’d be in a better position? Of course I did. I really did. But we’re still in a position to make the playoffs.”

However, BU isn’t 100 per cent healthy ahead of its weekend set against Victoria. Third-year forward Kinsley Ransom suffered a shoulder subluxation in practice this week and didn’t travel with the team. As a result, second-year forward Krystal Drain is headed west and will suit up for the Bobcats.

Aside from Ransom’s injury, BU will take an “all-hands-on-deck” approach to battling the Vikes.

“We have to really know what their strengths are and take those away and be determined to take them away, and then offensively we have to be determined to maximize our strengths, so getting the ball inside and using our post depth and muscle inside to get higher percentage shots,” Thomas said.

BU leading scorer Keisha Cox has averaged 17.3 points per game this season, which ranks fifth in Canada West. Yet in her last six games, the third-year Oceanside, Calif., product has averaged 20.5 points.

Cox is the unquestioned focal point of the Brandon offence, as is Victoria’s Jenna Bugiardini, who sits seventh in conference scoring averaging 16.3 points per game, but BU is a better team when it gets secondary scoring.

“When we get balanced scoring we’re much better. So whether it’s Alyssa (Montgomery), Amy (Williams), Kaela (Cranston), Kylee (Howard), Aleah (Bridges), the more we have contributing the better,” Thomas said. “And if we’re hitting form outside we’re extremely tough to beat.”

The BU men’s hoops team will look to end the season on a positive note against the Vikes (7-11). Victoria has already been eliminated from playoff contention, but the Bobcats (1-17) will look to spoil the final home games for three fifth-year seniors.

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