By HOWARD TSUMURA
Varsity Letters
LANGLEY — If you watched the way Dorian Glogovac played over the final four games of his high school career earlier this month at the B.C. senior boys Quad-A basketball championships, you’d almost swear that he was performing in some kind of dream state.
And maybe that isn’t too far from the truth, given the way the 6-foot-6 senior guard with Vancouver’s St. George’s Saints averaged 38.3 points, 16.4 rebounds and 3.2 assists en route to leading his team to third-place, its best finish in more than a decade.
“It’s about believing in yourself, knowing you are going to be in those situations and working hard and preparing yourself for those moments,” Glogovac said a couple of weekends ago during the Quad-A post-game awards ceremony in which he was named the first B.C. boys top-tiered provincial championship MVP not on the title-winning team since 12-year NBA veteran and current New Orleans Pelicans’ big man Kelly Olynyk pulled the trick with South Kamloops back in 2009, some 16 years ago.
“Like all of those shots I hit,” he continued, his game-winning buzzer-beating three-pointer in a 78-75 win in the bronze final earlier that day against Terry Fox still fresh on his mind, “…everything… I envision it. I truly believe it before it happens, and that belief that I have in myself is something… I don’t know where it comes from.”
That’s the perfect answer, because Glogovac has melded his visualization techniques into not only his pre-game preparation, but into every part of his daily habits, including the way he actually thinks about how he will practice.
Yet despite all of that, he’ll do things on the court he seems half-ready to admit surprise even himself.
Like the triple he somehow steadied himself to hit late in the game, one which our Varsity Letters’ team of veteran hoops scribe Dan Kinvig, and broadcaster Paul Eberhardt each rightly described in gushing terms.
In retrospect, it’s now two weeks later and hindsight still matches the moment.
Wrote Kinvig: “With 27.8 seconds left, Glogovac hit a ridiculous – even by his standards – twisting, fading three-pointer over two players, and it was 79-74.”
Said Eberhardt on the TFSETV.ca livestream of the Glogovac shot, which came against Spectrum defenders Harper Kopp and Justin Hinrichsen just as guard J Elijah Helman had also begun to close in: “Are you kidding me? Are you kidding me? That was his 50th point and he was triple-teammed.”
Glogovac had opened the tournament with 43 points in Saints’ 81-66 win over Surrey’s Lord Tweedsmuir Panthers.
There was a calm before the storm as he scored a ‘mere’ 18 points in a second-round 88-58 win over Abbotsford.
And in his final game of the tourney, in the aforementioned battle for third place, 39 points in that 78-75 win over Terry Fox.
“Dorian is a truly special player and I think what separates him the most is his ability to perform at his best when the stakes are the highest,” said St. George’s head coach Guy da Silva. “That was evident in our B.C.’s run. He can score at all three levels of the court and he has so many fakes and counters from mid- and close-range that it makes him almost impossible to shut down… regardless of what type of defence the opponent is in.”
Of course that is what made the Spectrum-St. George’s Final Four clash, from a dramatic standpoint, the game of this season’s Quad-A championships.
Here are the precise numbers on Glogovac’s 53-point outing: 18-of-45 from the field (40 per cent); 5-of-18 from three-point range (27.8 per cent); 12-of-14 free throw (85.7 per cent); 14 rebounds (2 offensve); four assists, six turnovers, one steal, one block, four fouls over all 40 minutes of floor time.
To put it onto perspective, over the 79-year history of the championships, it was an historic performance on so many different levels.
A PLACE IN ANY DISCUSSION OF THE TOURNEY’S BEST
In the history of the B.C. senior boys basketball tournament, there are certain individuals whose feats of scoring wonder — amidst the intense pressure of the championship side of the draw — have rightfully earned a place within its lore of most fabled single-game performances.
There’s the 45 points of Steveston’s Gareth Davies in 1984, 41 years later, still the record for most points scored in a top-tiered championship final, as the Packers topped the Richmond Colts 84-59.
There’s Yale’s 2015 MVP Jauquin Bennett-Boire, finishing with 44 points, one shy of equalling that mark, in a 2015 title-game 69-63 victory over the Terry Fox Ravens.
And perhaps most apropos of all, a trip back to 2006 when G.P. Vanier’s Calvin Westbrook scored 52 points in an opening-round 102-95 overtime win over White Rock Christian.
For 19 years, it stood as the record for the most points scored by a player on the championship side of the draw of the B.C. senior boys top-tiered championships.
Then, along came a kid who wasn’t even born when Westbrook — at the tourney this year as an assistant coach with Single-A Haida Gwaii — lit up the goals at the PNE Agrodome.
Yes, Dorian Glogovac is now the top-tiered tourney’s all-time leading single-game scorer on the championship side of the draw, and the top single-game scorer of Friday’s Final Four.
And at the risk of repeating ourselves, it was impossible to ignore the quote Spectrum head coach Tyler Verde gave Kinvig following Glogovac’s Final Four heroics: “Growing up, I remember one play from Kobe Bryant in the corner over three guys against Portland. And some of those shots (at the end of the game) reminded me of that. You know, obviously comparing somebody to Kobe Bryant is crazy. But it just reminded me of that, as somebody who grew up watching basketball.”
Our Kinvig provided Varsity Letters’ readers with the all-time Top 5 single-game leaders in top-tiered provincial championship game history, and while all are incredible feats by stunningly-talented players, only Glogovac’s came on the championship side of the draw.
1 Nathan Vogstad, Queen Charlotte – 75 points (2014)
2 Miguel Tomley, Tamanawis – 66 points (2018)
3 Sam Vandermeulen, Abbotsford – 58 points (1965)
4 Jacob Doerksen, Rick Hansen – 54 points (2005)
5 Dorian Glogovac, St. George’s – 53 points (2025)
“When we played Spectrum at the Cowichan tournament to start the year and he went for 41 points and caught fire in the second half, after we went down 20 to start the game, I could feel that this year was going to be different and truly felt like if we have him, we can play with anyone,” said da Silva.
“He’s much more than a scorer though, he’s a true leader whose belief in himself carries over to his teammates and makes everyone on our team want to give everything of themselves to help the team win.”
Which brings us full circle to the start of our story.
Born in Serbia, Glogovac came to Canada with his parents as a two-year-old back in 2009.
And as an homage to his homeland, he came to know, appreciate and ultimately adopt the winning ways of a certain Serbian tennis superstar.
“I am inspired by Novak Djokovich, the tennis player,” Glogovac told Varsity Letters moments after accepting his MVP award.”The amount of belief that he has in himself, even when everyone in the crowd is against him… he believes in his abilities no matter what the outcome is.”
Djokovich is a huge proponent of the same kind of pre-match visualization techniques that Glogovac has made his bedrock.
“My family, all the people around me, they continue to support me and have shown me so much support.
“Every time I put on that jersey, I am representing more than just myself, my team,” added Glogovac who said following the provincial tournament that he will focus his thoughts towards the academic/basketball balance he wants to find in selecting his college basketball destination.
“I am representing all the people that came before us in the Saints community, and that culture we have. It’s something you can’t just go out there and not give it your all.”
It’s stuff like that, the kind we saw from the kid wearing No. 1, that on its on its best days, not only makes us cherish the month of March, but leaves us aching over the off-season for the chance to see the magic which inevitably accompanies the dawn of every new season.
(Varsity Letters once again extends a warm ‘Thank You’ to Ken Winslade, the caretaker and resident historian of B.C. boys high school basketball, for additional research to confirm several details included in this story)
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Where is he playing next season? Uvic would be nice.
Not to take away anything from local schools, but thinking this kid is going to the Ivy League. Top student and much higher level of competition.