G.W. Graham Grizzlies' Lincoln Larson (left) and Christian Beck close in on North Delta's Gurdas Dillon during opening day action from the 2023 Tsumura Basketball Invitational on Wednesday at the Langley Events Centre. (Photo by Howard Tsumura property of Varsity Letters 2023. All Rights Reserved)
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TBI SELECT 16 DRAW: Day 1 is complete at the 2023 Tsumura Basketball Invitational and we’ve got all eight game-by-game reports!

LANGLEY — Day 1 of the 2023 Tsumura Basketball Invitational is now complete.Enjoy our game reports!SELECT 16(All games at South Court)TOP HALF DRAWQUAD ANORTH DELTA 66  G.W. GRAHAM 50LANGLEY — The North Delta Huskies are offering a pretty big early clue as to what kind of team they aspire to be this season.And if the […]

Lord Byng's Eli Mullen (left) tries to get a step on Walnut Grove's Hayden Talaba during opening day action from the 2023 Tsumura Basketball Invitational on Wednesday at the Langley Events Centre. (Photo by Howard Tsumura property of Varsity Letters 2023. All Rights Reserved)
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TBI SUPER 16 DRAW: Day 1 is complete at the 2023 Tsumura Basketball Invitational and we’ve got all eight game-by-game reports!

LANGLEY — We’ve gone final on Day 1 of the 2023 Tsumura Basketball Invitational.Here’s all eight game reports with photos.To insure you haven’t missed a new report across right to the bottom as games are listed to mirror their place in the draw and are not ordered by start times.SUPER 16(All games at Centre Court)TOP […]

SoCal's Santa Margarita Eagles will open play at the 2023 Tsumura Basketball Invitational on Wednesday (7:45 p.m.) against Burnaby's Byrne Creek Bulldogs. (Photo courtesy Santa Margarita athletics 2023. All Rights Reserved)
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TBI Boys 2023: Santa Margarita Catholic’s Eagles fly north! Klay Thompson’s alma mater brings pulse of SoCal hoops to Tsumura Basketball Invitational! Day 1 debut Wednesday vs. Byrne Creek!

LANGLEY — Everything about their world seems soaked in culture and the history of SoCal basketball.Check out this week’s Los Angeles Times’ Top 25 boys high school rankings for its own Southland region, and there are the Santa Margarita Catholic Eagles sitting at No. 19.Do a little surfing through your favourite search engine and it’s […]

Simon Fraser Red Leafs Tate Christiansen (left) and Matthys Van Bylandt, a pair of North Vancouverites and Handsworth Secondary graduates, have an emotional and energetic surge to the Simon Fraser Red Leafs in their redshirt-freshman seasons on the hill. (Photo by Wilson Wong property of Simon Fraser athletics 2023. All Rights Reserved)
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Rookie Red Leafs rise to new challenges atop Burnaby Mountain! Ex-Handsworth stars Van Bylandt, Christiansen lead with work ethic while their talents begin to shine for Simon Fraser!

BURNABY — A mere three minutes of viewing may not be enough to constitute any kind of a scientific sample size.Yet if you were among the small crowd gathered earlier this month for the CCA Div. 2 Canadian Tip-Off Classic at the Langley Events Centre, you might have at least developed a pretty strong hunch […]

Montreal's Iraghi Muganda dives for the end zone as he eludes the defence of UBC's Ryan Baker (14) and Ben Sangmuah (15) during Saturday action at the 2023 Vanier Cup in Kingston, Ont. (Photo by James Paddle-Grant property of Queen's Athletics 2023. All Rights Reserved)
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Vanier Cup 2023: UBC’s national title bid falls short at the hands of Montreal’s historic post-season defence! Carabins keep Thunderbirds’ offence out of the end zone to hoist U SPORTS gridiron spoils!

KINGSTON, ONT. — They came east to play the biggest game of their season, but to win it they had overcome a defence whose numbers told a tale of invincibility.And in Saturday’s Vanier Cup national championship final, it was a heavy dose of those historic credentials which not only kept the UBC Thunderbirds out of […]

Behind a 36-point performance, SFU senior Jessica Wisotzki led her team to a win over Minnesota Moorhead at the West Gym, it was the team's fifth straight victory. (Photo by Wilson Wong property of Simon Fraser athletics 2023. All Rights Reserved)
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For Simon Fraser’s Jessica Wisotzki, a new single-game scoring standard caps five-game win streak, Red Leafs’ star senior also says ‘sharing the rock’ with sister Sophia part of ‘…a special bond!’

By Howard Tsumura(This story appeared in its original form at athletics.SFU.ca Re-printed here via kind permission of Simon Fraser athletics)BURNABY — The Simon Fraser women’s basketball team opened its season with three straight losses on B.C. soil during the recent CCA Div. 2 Canadian Tip-Off Classic, inviting questions as to just how long it was […]

UBC's 1987 Western Bowl hero Mark Nykolaichuk (far right) celebrates with fellow 'Birds football alums (left to right) Bill Barber, Mike Bellefontaine and Terry Cochrane at the 2023 Hardy Cup championship game played at Thunderbird Stadium. (Photo courtesy Mark Nykolaichuk)
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UBC’s Vanier Cup ties that bind: It’s been 36 years since Mark Nykolaichuk’s Western Bowl pick-six sent host ‘Birds to ’87 final! Saturday, he’s at Vanier Cup ’23 to support UBC’s latest national title bid!

VANCOUVER — It was a moment etched in time for Mark Nykolaichuk.And fittingly, when readers of The Province newspaper opened their Sunday tabloid to the front page of the sports section on the morning of Nov. 15, 1987, what they saw captured that precise moment to perfection.“UBC Back In Final” the headline screamed, along with […]

Thunderbirds' Cesare Rednour-Bruckman puts the straight arm on St. FX punter Max Capriotti on his way to a punt return touchdown Saturday as the Thunderbirds defeated the Atlantic champion X-Men 47-17 in the Mitchell Bowl national semifinal at Thunderbird Stadium. (Photo by Bob Frid property of UBC athletics 2022. All Rights Reserved).
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UBC at Vanier Cup 2023: Through Soriano, Kennedy and a kid named Chez, how three blank football canvases now paint Thunderbirds’ title-contending DNA!

VANCOUVER — How do you define the image of a Vanier Cup national title contender?How about through the actions of three UBC defenders, who over the early stages of the second half of Saturday’s Mitchell Bowl national championship semifinal game at Thunderbird Stadium, made the kinds of back-to-back-to-back plays which not only reversed the momentum […]

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Tsumura Basketball 2023: Follow your favourite TBI teams with our complete four-day brackets for all 64 of our boys and girls entrants!

LANGLEY — This past week we unveiled the opening-day draws in each of our four separate 16-team boys and girls pools at next month’s Tsumura Basketball Invitational senior boys and girls tournaments at the Langley Events Centre.Today, we’ve got the complete Wednesday-through-Saturday brackets for all four divisions of play.BOYS (Dec. 6-9)SUPER 16Click on link below […]

Alex Motherwell of the SMUS Blue Jags returns as a senior this season as the Victoria squad looks to claim the B.C. senior girls Triple-A title. (Photo by Blair Shier property of Vancouver Sports Pictures 2023. All Rights Reserved)
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B.C. senior girls basketball Top 10 rankings! Preseason polls rate Riverside, SMUS, Mulgrave as teams to beat for B.C. hoops glory!

LANGLEY — A pair of defending B.C. champions, and a silver medallist from a season looking to strike some elusive gold of its own this season.That’s the back-story behind three of B.C.’s best teams, each of whom carry No. 1 rankings into the new 2023-24 campaign.Quad-A B.C. champion Riverside Rapids of PoCo and Double-A B.C. […]