Kelowna's Micah Borne. (Photo by Howard Tsumura property of Varsity Letters 2021. All Rights Reserved)
Feature High School Boys Basketball

B.C. Boys Quad-A tip sheet: Star-studded and ready for 2021-22, here’s our look at 15 top rising seniors to watch!

The quietest Championship Saturday in the history of B.C. boys high school basketball has arrived.And while we have no actual games to celebrate, we can still celebrate the game itself and the resilience it has shown en route to a comeback in 2021-22.Today, to cap two straight weeks of looking ahead to some of next […]

Duchess Park's Cole Laing. (Photo by Wilson Wong property of Wilson Wong 2021. All Rights Reserved)
Feature High School Boys Basketball

B.C. boys Triple-A tip sheet: Here’s our look at 15 top rising seniors to watch as our 2021-22 hoops tip-off now officially on the clock!

Welcome back to our unofficial countdown to the start of the 2021-22 B.C. senior boys basketball season.In a normal year, we would all have our eyes trained on the Langley Events Centre for Final Four Friday.Instead, our first cancelled provincials leaves us looking for more.Today, Varsity Letters is honoured to present its list of 15 […]

King George's Max Astak is a player to watch in 2020-21. (Photo by Wilson Wong property of Wilson Wong 2021. All Rights Reserved)
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Part 1: B.C. Boys Basketball Players to Watch in 2021-22! Double-A, Single A plus rising Grade 11 talent at Quad-, Triple- and Double-A tiers!

Today, with three more official days official pondering remaining in a 2020-21 B.C. senior boys basketball season that wasn’t, we begin a three-day countdown of sorts.From today through Saturday, Varsity Letters will reveal  the Players to Watch in 2021-22 with our back-to-back-to-back tip sheets, compiled by a committee of B.C. Boys High School Basketball Association coaches, […]

North Vancouver's Robert Sacre has returned from an NBA and international playing career to begin his foray into basketball management with the CEBL's Fraser Valley Bandits. (Photo by David Sherman/NBAE via Getty Images)
Feature High School Boys Basketball University Men's Basketball

Robert Sacre: Energized by his Gonzaga/Lakers past, Fraser Valley Bandits’ new assistant GM makes a hoops homecoming!

He attended Vancouver Grizzlies games as a kid, then went on to play in the NBA for the Los Angeles Lakers.And through it all, it’s hard to think of anyone who has more passionately repped B.C.’s Lower Mainland and Fraser Valley regions as rightful professional basketball territory than Robert Sacre.With all of that in mind, […]

Feature High School Boys Basketball University Men's Basketball

VL Podcast 03.10.21: Simon Fraser coach Steve Hanson reflects on what March Madness means to him, including a thrilling B.C. AAA title in 2012 at Terry Fox!

Welcome back to Varsity Letters-The Podcast! This week, as the Langley Events Centre re-plays classic B.C. boys basketball championship finals, we have a guest who has coached in one of the most memorable finishes ever. Before he assumed the head role with SFU men’s basketball in 2016-17, Steve Hanson was the co-coach of the Terry […]

If Utah Valley's Fardaws Aimaq can maintain his current pace and win the NCAA Div. 1 rebounding title, he would have the highest average since the late 1970s. (Photo by Jay Drowns, property of Utah Valley University Marketing 2021. All Rights Reserved)
Feature High School Boys Basketball University Men's Basketball

Richmond’s rebounder for the ages: A craving for caroms has Utah Valley’s Fardaws Aimaq treading on historic NCAA Div. 1 hardwood!

As the NCAA men’s Div. 1 regular season draws towards its completion, the microscope trained one of B.C.’s high school basketball’s most remarkable grads has continued to intensify.Yet nothing is slowing down the per-game rebounding average of former Steveston-London grad Fardaws Aimaq, the 6-foot-11, 260-pound redshirt sophomore centre with the Utah Valley Wolverines.With four more […]

Fraser Valley Cascades' guard Jordyn Sekhon has remained ready for his big opportunity at the U SPORTS level. Until the pandemic hit, many felt that breakthrough was going to happen in 2020-21. Now, the former W.J. Mouat grad is counting the days until next season tips off. (Photo by Dan Kinvig property of University of the Fraser Valley athletics 2021. All Rights Reserved)
Feature High School Boys Basketball University Men's Basketball

A Sunday Read: After making the biggest shot of his life, UFV Cascades’ guard Jordyn Sekhon reflects on the power of preparation!

It was the late, great John Wooden who once quipped: “When opportunity comes, it’s too late to prepare.”Delivered a full half-century ago, in an era where catchphrases weren’t so immediately fated to become commercialized cliches, the wise words of the Wizard of Westwood have retained a dignity and a depth of meaning so instantly relevant […]

The historic original basketball court at North Delta Secondary School lives on in the lives of those it has touched. (Photo graphic by Gabriel Lynn property of Varsity Letters 2021. All Rights Reserved)
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May the circle be unbroken: How North Delta’s original 1957 basketball court was rescued & re-purposed as a unifying symbol for Huskies old and new!

NORTH DELTA — Basketball’s centre-court circle.Within the dimensions of the sport’s time-honoured schematic, it’s always been the place where the narrative begins… that perfectly circular gathering point measuring a regulation 12 feet in diametre which never fails to welcome its two combatants to Act 1, Scene 1.And just like theatre’s most well-trodden stages, the passing […]

Fingers are crossed that high school basketball can make its comeback for the 2021-22 season, and with that, the return of the TBI at the LEC. (Photo by Howard Tsumura property of Varsity Letters 2021. All Rights Reserved)
Feature High School Boys Basketball High School Girls Basketball

Tsumura Basketball Invitational: Optimism rules as we set tentative Dec. 2021 dates for an LEC return! Here’s our list of 40 boys and girls teams!

LANGLEY — Hope springs eternal here with all of us behind the scenes at the Tsumura Basketball Invitational.While our annual two weeks of early-season ‘Welcome Back’ to the B.C. senior boys and girls basketball world was, of course, cancelled this past December due to the global pandemic, we here at the TBI have our fingers […]

Ty Rowell (left) of the Cal Baptist Lancers, and Fardaws Aimaq of the Utah Valley Wolverines, each had spectacular efforts to lead their respective teams to victories in NCAA Div. 1 Western Athletic Conference games played stateside on Friday. (Photos property of Cal Baptist Athletics and Utah Valley University Marketing 2020. All Rights Reserved)
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Rowell and Aimaq! B.C.’s one-two punch of ‘Ty and Daws’ each play starring roles Friday in the WAC as Cal Baptist, Utah Valley both get big W’s!

It was a Friday night in which B.C.’s best Div. 1 men’s basketball talent took a backseat to no one in the NCAA’s Western Athletic Conference.Point guard Ty Rowell keyed a game-changing 16-3 second-half run with nine of his 17 points, the Langley-Walnut Grove grad never leaving the floor on a night in which he […]