THE SULTAN OF SWISH

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This article was published 30/01/2025 (226 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Sultan Haider Bhatti bears the weight of his world on his shoulders.

That world, in his eyes, is a Brandon University men’s basketball team that took a big step towards apathy this year.

He won a Canada West playoff game in each of his first three seasons but suddenly faces a harsh reality. Unless he can lift the Bobcats to at least a win or two against two nationally ranked opponents, his post-secondary career will end without another post-season run.

But Bhatti isn’t Superman, and he knows it. He’s much more fittingly known as “Batman” around the Wheat City.

The Montreal native is a superhero to some — and a superstar to all — ranking top four in Canada West in points (21.2 per game), rebounds (11.1) and assists (4.9).

Outside of Bobcat Nation, however, it’s easy to see him as a villain.

“One hundred per cent, people would think I’m a villain,” Bhatti said. “I play teams and after the game they talk to me like, ‘You know when you play, we want everybody else to beat us besides you.’ That makes me the villain.”

Now for the most part, Bhatti just goes about his business.

He plays his league-leading 36.2 minutes per game his way — crafty and aggressive on the offensive end and conserving energy on the other side until the ball hits the rim to rebounds.

But push him around and he will bust out as many dribble moves as it takes to break your ankles when he gets the ball next.

Comment on his missed shot and he’ll try to knock three in a row down on your head.

And if you say anything while trailing late in the game, don’t expect him to be the bigger person and walk away.

Bhatti has yet to finish a home-court win without a last-minute technical foul this season.

The Alberta Golden Bears made fun of their record at the end of BU’s 19-point win over them in November. Bhatti jawed back.

Mount Royal forward Sam Barnie shoved him as he grabbed a rebound in the last minute of BU’s lone win in January and called him soft.

“I got mad and was like ‘Guy, this is the first time you’ve scored 20 points in your whole career. You think you’re good at basketball and now you’re talking,’” Bhatti said, though it was, in fact, the third-year’s second time ever cracking 20.

“Then the ref heard that and gave me a tech, but he initiated it.”

Like it or not, some of the most idolized basketball players of all-time had that same edge.

Bhatti outworks just about every one of his teammates and isn’t afraid to tell anyone. He is determined to beat the man across from him and couldn’t care less whether he respects him, or how he feels after the final buzzer.

“I’m not here to be liked. I’m just trying to be here playing basketball,” Bhatti said. “I don’t think people hate me but every time they play against me they’re like, ‘Oh, it’s going to be a long night.’”

Bhatti was initially supposed to have one name — Haider — which means “warrior.” His military-buff grandfather picked it out. His cousin, then 10 years old, wanted to name him and picked Sultan, meaning “king,” because she liked it.

But for at least three more weeks, he’s Brandon’s Batman, someone you’d definitely rather be with than against.

BU’s Tyler Crayston coined the moniker because of his name, though it works on another level.

Like Bruce Wayne, he doesn’t possess any superhuman traits and bought every tool he uses to battle opponents.

Bhatti paid for his with sweat equity — and they weren’t cheap.

HIGH SCHOOL

Bhatti grew up in Park Extension, a district of Montreal home to about 33,000.

“This is a neighbourhood filled with brown people, Pakistani, Indian,” Bhatti said.

Born to Pakistani parents, Khalid and Tanveer, he first took to cricket but didn’t like how much standing around it included. He found the outdoor basketball courts near his house when he was six years old and was immediately hooked.

Bhatti’s older brother Suleman played, so he had someone to follow, but it quickly became his biggest passion as he spent hours upon hours hooping until attending École Lucien-Pagé for high school.

That’s where coach Vitiello Moussignac first saw him. Bhatti was bigger and taller — or in his words, “chunkier” — than most of his peers, so he ended up in the post for most of his first two years. When Moussignac started coaching him at the midget level (Grade 10-11 years for Manitoba), he made it clear that all his players need to handle the ball, play on the wing and in the post.

So Bhatti developed a variety of skills but wasn’t ready to succeed physically.

Moussignac said he developed good shooting touch back then, when he headed to Vanier College for his senior year.

Bhatti spent the following year on the bench and recalls being told to lose weight. He hit 250 pounds at six-foot-two.

“That used to play with my mental,” Bhatti said. “I’m 17 and he’s telling me I have to lose weight.

“I kind of understood where he’s coming from that if you lose weight, you’ll be faster, everything’s going to be easier.”

He dropped down to Vanier’s Division 2 team and averaged nearly 30 points per game.

The following year was the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Locked out of gyms, Bhatti decided to start running.

He tried to run one kilometre the first few days and was exhausted. But he pushed through.

“I just had to see the future goal,” he said. “I’m running in order to not be benched.”

One km became two, two became four and later in 2020 he completed a 20 km run. In the meantime, he never weighed himself until returning to a basketball run as restrictions eased.

“I went to see the guys and they just looked at me like, ‘Who are you?’” Bhatti recalled before weighing in at 190 pounds.

He’d learned how to play and compete with 60 pounds of dead weight. Suddenly, he was a force, one former Bobcat guard and current Vanier coach Mikee Dosado let Bobcats bench boss Gil Cheung know about.

Cheung sent Bhatti his lone U Sports offer. He took it, and it was one of the best decisions both of them have made.

ROLE PLAYER

Bhatti worked into a small-but-loaded Bobcats starting lineup, playing with future Canada West defensive player of the year Anthony Tsegakele, elite import guard Jahmaal Gardner, Dominique Dennis and Eli Ampofo.

Bhatti was the third option. He figured it out, averaging 13.4 ppg and shooting 34 per cent from three-point range as he was named to the conference’s all-rookie team.

However, he was far from happy as the team went 2-14 in the regular season against a stacked East Division including Winnipeg, Manitoba, Regina and Saskatchewan.

The following season, Bhatti thought he’d take a step forward but had to change roles again.

The arrival of imports Khari Ojeda-Harvey and Jack McDonald meant less time with the ball, unless he was willing to go grab it off the rim.

His job was essentially guard a guy bigger than him, grab rebounds and shoot if he was open.

So he became one of the best in the country at it, making 15 of his first 19 triples. By the end of the year, he hit 43 of the 97 threes as one of three Bobcats to average more than 44 per cent from deep.

More importantly, they had their first winning season since 2009 and reached the conference quarterfinals.

That game, a heartbreaking triple-overtime loss to the Wesmen when Donald Stewart faked out Tsegakele and delivered the deep dagger in the dying seconds, was the closest the Bobcats have been to reaching nationals since 2007.

They would have still needed a win at Victoria the following weekend, but that year, the Bobcats could truly beat anyone when hot.

“That was a game, man,” Bhatti said.

“It was just a blur. We needed a win and if you know the history, the past two years we weren’t able to beat Winnipeg at all. We were all struggling, trying to do too much. The only one that was consistent that game was Anthony.

“Triple overtime, if Donald Stewart’s making a three … game-winner, I don’t think we have a chance of winning.”

SHOOTER

Bhatti spends his summers back in Montreal, regularly working with Moussignac.

The high school coach has always regarded Bhatti one of the best shooters he’s worked with but one workout still stands out.

He counted as Bhatti hit 44 straight shots.

“Three-point, long range, almost half court,” Moussignac recalled. “He hit six in a row from half court, 44 shots straight. I was like, ‘Damn, I’m shooting with Steph Curry right now.’”

Two seasons ago, BU women’s head coach Ilarion Bonhomme said Bhatti’s the best shooter Chueng’s had on his team, and that’s coming from a guy who played three years in blue and gold and two more with the Manitoba Bisons.

Bobcat assistant coach O’Neil Gordon takes it a step further.

“He’s literally the best shooter in the country,” Gordon said.

“It’s an easy ball. A lot of people shoot with legs — he shoots an easy ball. It’s a lot of upper body and it’s the same release every single time.

“He has in-the-gym range. I see it every day.”

Bhatti jumps when he shoots but it looks like his lower half stays frozen as he fires the ball with a compact, fluid arm action.

He realized he’d have to use it a bit more when Tsegakele left BU in 2023, and especially when Gardner signed his professional contract the morning of the 2023-24 season opener in Winnipeg.

The Bobcats were no match for the Bisons that evening as Bhatti, Ojeda-Harvey and Ampofo tried to fill the New Yorker’s shoes, trying to be “the guy.”

“We had a talk and were like, ‘We’re not going to win games like that. Yes, we’re scorers, but we’re not volume scorers. If we help each other out … we’ll be able to score 20 every night, each of us,’” Bhatti recalled.

They came back the next night and stomped the Bisons, then rattled off six more wins in a row.

All three were over 41 per cent from beyond the arc that season, with Bhatti making 64 of 151 and averaging a team-high 19.1 ppg and 11.3 rpg.

They matched their 12-8 record and once again won their first playoff game before falling to the eventual Canada West champion Victoria Vikes.

“We knew how to play with each other, when to give the ball to who,” said Bhatti, who suddenly lost his two running mates for the following season.

FAMILY AND FAITH

Ojeda-Harvey was back in New York before the Vikes were even crowned a few days later.

Dennis took off quickly as well.

Ampofo, Silas Owusu-Acheaw and Malik Lewis had a year of eligibility left but were done their degrees.

Almost everyone Bhatti met when he arrived was gone, but quitting early wasn’t an option. Bhatti’s dad was hesitant to let him leave home at first — now he won’t let him stop until he has a bachelor’s degree in his hands.

It wasn’t easy for a devout Ahmadi Muslim family to send their youngest son halfway across the country for a sport they knew little about.

What they did know, and what Bhatti had instilled from a young age, was the discipline of their faith. He was to return home quickly from school to pray, go to the mosque and read the Quran.

That discipline translated to Bhatti’s approach to basketball. He finds time to train, shoot and pray every day and is dedicated to following a strict routine.

Even so, his family had reservations about sending him to a place without an Amhadi mosque. It’s a branch of Islam — much like Christianity has myriad sects — with significant foundational differences from the main ones, Shia and Sunni.

“We don’t get along,” Bhatti said. “At the end of the day, we all pray the same way.”

But after thinking about the BU offer, Khalid decided he didn’t want his son to look back and wonder about an opportunity he wasn’t allowed to pursue.

Now, Bobcat games on Canada West TV are staples in the Bhatti household.

His relatives come over and tune into as many games as they can, and Bhatti gets a spectrum of feedback after games from his parents, who again, didn’t know the first thing about hoops.

“My mom’s kind of the sweeter one like ‘It’s OK, it happens you got the next game,” Bhatti said.

“(Dad) will call me after the games and be like, ‘You missed two shots, you’re not allowed to miss shots.’

“I know I’m going to miss shots. He’s like. ‘no, you’re wide open, you’re not supposed to miss.’”

THE GUY

At times this year, it’s felt like he can’t miss — meaning he’s gone entire halves without doing so, and also that if he has an off night, his team is guaranteed to lose.

But he also knew he had to do more than shoot this year.

His point guard was leaving and if there was a new one coming, he wouldn’t be a 25-year-old, pass-first star like Ojeda-Harvey.

Gordon let him know how his role was changing, so he focused on ball-handling all summer.

Their 6 a.m., workouts, the ones they’ve been doing for three years, have slightly shifted. Bhatti still takes hundreds of shots, but a lot of them are off the dribble and coming around screens.

This year, Bhatti has to create the majority of the shots the Bobcats take, whether they’re his or anyone else.

He’s the point-forward, the team’s top scorer and assist-getter on offence. He’s the most important rebounder. He almost never comes off the floor.

If there was a Canada West basketball fantasy draft, Bhatti would be a clear-cut top-three pick.

“I knew I was going to have a good season. At the same time, I didn’t know how good it’d be individually,” Bhatti said.

“I’m having, if we’re being honest, an all-Canadian season. But the record’s not showing it and at the end of the day record holds the heaviest weight.

“I knew we had new rookies and we had to adjust, but I didn’t know it was going to be that hard.”

Bhatti had a conversation with Tsegakele recently about the role he plays now — the one Tsegakele did a few years back. The Gatineau, Que., product said he wished he passed the ball more back then.

But the formula worked as the Bobcats won more often than not in Tsegakele’s last season.

“If I don’t score, I don’t think we have a chance to have a close game besides the Alberta game when everybody was hot, and that usually doesn’t happen often this year,” Bhatti said.

“Rebounding, nobody else is grabbing rebounds so I kind of have to do that job.”

Bhatti noted his coaches get on him for not shooting enough at practice as he tries to dish the ball around. But he has his reasons.

“This is a bad thing about our team this year, guys are not in the gym like the other years we had. So in practice I’m trying to pass the ball to guys, that way they can get their reps in. I know I’m here at 6 a.m. with O getting my reps in but they’re not,” he said.

“I need them to win games so I’m passing the ball, trying to get them reps, then coaches get mad at me because I’m not taking shots.”

The Bobcats are 4-10 but should have a few more wins. They let a big one slip away when they handed the MacEwan Griffins their first win in more than five years before the semester break, and had a few close calls as they’ve yet to sweep an opponent this season.

They face two nationally ranked teams on the road, starting with Calgary on Friday and Saturday, then Winnipeg the following weekend.

Bhatti knows they need to somehow win two of those four, then sweep the Saskatchewan Huskies (1-13) at home on the final weekend of the regular season to stay alive.

“If we make the playoffs, I won’t say it’s because of me, but if we miss the playoffs it’s because of me,” Bhatti said.

“If the next six games, we play hard, actually play like we’re supposed to play every night, I won’t be mad if we lose or don’t make the playoffs.

“(Gordon’s) been telling us all the time, if you play hard and lose, it’s OK, it happens to everybody. If you don’t even try, you guys are embarrassing yourselves out there.”

FUTURE

Bhatti isn’t positive what the next year holds.

He has three classes left in his degree and could stay for one more year but would like to wrap his schooling up in the summer and try to play professionally.

He’s finishing a business administration degree focused on accounting and will likely settle into that, along with coaching and training basketball players when he decides he’s done playing.

Senior forwards Blake Magnusson and Jack McDonald are playing their last U Sports games as well, while Travis Hamberger is undecided.

So it could be an entirely new group in 2025-26 compared to the one Bhatti joined in 2021.

But the fact the all-star forward stayed this long in the age of transfers and championship chasing speaks volumes.

“It’s loyalty. When I came out of college, I only had one offer. It was Brandon. Nobody knew who I was, nobody had heard of me before,” Bhatti said.

“They believed in me so I feel like staying here and giving it back to them was the best thing.

“I understand (Cheung) wants me to come back but at the same time I feel like it’s kind of time to move on. He has a new group. Time to build on with the new guys, have their own chemistry.”

Referees may breathe a sigh of relief seeing a new face in BU’s No. 9 uniform next year. Opposing forwards will too.

Even Gordon admits Bhatti “rubs people the wrong way” at times. But he’s seen tremendous growth over the past four years.

It once was like pulling teeth to get the Quebecer to talk. Now he’s one of the most vocal players on the team.

Bhatti once focused exclusively on his game. Now he bears responsibility for how his entire group performs.

“He may seem demonstrative but it’s all smoke and mirrors, man. He’s a good kid, he understands and means well,” Gordon said.

“If you don’t know him, you probably get offended by the way he looks, but he’s harmless, man. He’s a real good guy. He’s a competitor.

“When you’re a competitor, you might do things people don’t like but don’t ever judge a book by its cover.”

» tfriesen@brandonsun.com

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