Brandon ready to run and gun

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This article was published 04/11/2022 (1164 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Time will tell, but the Brandon University Bobcats might finally have enough speed and scoring to mask their lack of size and interior defence.

They beat the Mount Royal Cougars and Regina Cougars to open the pre-season, then hung 102 and 97 points in their home exhibition games against Western and the Universite du Quebec a Montreal, respectively. BU closed with a few uninspiring losses to Manitoba and Winnipeg when coach Gil Cheung played his bench for the majority of the time.

As Brandon opens the Canada West regular season tonight against Regina at the Healthy Living Centre at 8 o’clock, the 13th-year bench boss has one key takeaway from the past two months of work.

“We found an identity,” Cheung said.

“We are going to try to play as fast as we can and score a ton of points … We can play fast, we have multiple guys that can score, so that’s our identity, our tempo and our style of play.”

TOUGH ROAD AHEAD

The Bobcats have been in the playoffs in four of the past five seasons, though last year they were 2-14 in a year everyone participated in the post-season tournament since Canada West had teams stay within three divisions due to COVID-19.

BU won its first-round game over the University of Northern British Columbia, showing signs it was better than its paltry record suggested.

But the schedule is challenging. It always is, when the four teams they play every year are the Manitoba and Saskatchewan schools. Brandon drew the No. 11 spot in the pre-season coaches poll, below all four nearby opponents.

To make matters worse, it also takes on No. 2 Alberta and No. 3 UBC before closing the year against No. 17 MacEwan and No. 14 UNBC, four games the Bobcats may need to sweep to sniff the post-season.

BU hosts UNBC to wrap up the regular season on Feb. 10-11. The top 12 teams make the playoffs starting the following weekend.

BACKCOURT

When Jahmaal Gardner is hot, there might not be a better one-on-one scorer in the conference. The Brentwood, N.Y., product eased back into action in 2021 after three years off due to injuries and the pandemic season. Then he popped off for more than 20 points per game in 2022.

He gets a running mate from his home state in Khari Ojeda-Harvey, who transferred this year after a National Junior College Athletic Association Division III second-team all-American season. The five-foot-eight guard can shoot the long ball but more importantly, showed he can run a smooth offence. Ojeda-Harvey posted multiple nine-assist, one-turnover stat lines.

To think Dominique Dennis could be a backup after starting and playing 30 minutes a night as a rookie in 2019-20 and getting stronger since speaks to solid backcourt depth. However, he could still start for now as Ojeda-Harvey picked up an upper-body injury on the final pre-season weekend.

“With Jahmaal, Khari, Dom finally getting healthy, Travis (Hamberger) has had a good pre-season, Eli (Ampofo) finding good minutes, those five and bringing Malik (Lewis) in as well, those five or six have done a really good job handling the ball and being able to score for us,” Cheung said. They’re the ones that get us going.”

FRONTCOURT

Anthony Tsegakele is back as a much more experienced player after his second summer in the Canadian Elite Basketball League. The six-foot-six forward was named Saskatchewan Rattlers’ sixth man of the year. Already a top-15 player in Canada West as a third-team all-star in 2021-22, he looks like he’s jumping half a foot higher and hammering down dunks in practice this fall.

Sultan Haider Bhatti is coming off a conference all-rookie-team season when he scored nearly 15 ppg. He averaged 16.6 ppg and 8.8 rebounds per game in five pre-season contests.

The Bobcats added Australian Jack McDonald, a six-foot-seven forward who can allow Tsegakele to guard smaller opponents.

Six-foot-eight Gimli product Blake Magnusson has yet to show he can play effective minutes and BU doesn’t have any other true bigs. So the Bobcats will still have to play small ball a lot, though that’s no problem for Cheung. He calls Tsegakele, Haider Bhatti and subs like Ian Gasana “hybrid” players.

“They’re just basketball payers. That’s really what everyone’s looking for and luckily, I think we have some of the best ones around,” Cheung said. “Guys that can play multiple positions, defend multiple positions, score a little bit on the inside, rebound, shoot the basketball … It gives us some versatility on both ends of the floor.”

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