Kalie Saari (left) and Jayse Matonovich of Kamloops' Sa-Hali Sabres welcome one and all to the debut of the 15 Players to Watch next season in B.C. senior girls AAA basketball. (Photo by Jody Vosper property of Sa-Hali Secondary athletics 2021. All Rights Reserved)
Feature High School Girls Basketball

15 Players to Watch in 2021-22: B.C. girls Triple-A basketball has its greatest strengths centred around its Class of 2023 and beyond!

LANGLEY — From an organic standpoint, it’s B.C. high school girls basketball’s most unique tier. Very quickly, however, it’s beginning to gain its own identity.With the recent switch to a four-tiered province, the former top tier — AAA — has become a melting pot of sorts, a new home with both holdover programs and those […]

Seycove's Brianna Norman, a rising senior ahead of the 2021-22 season, is one of the players to watch next season in the B.C. senior AA ranks. (Photo by Sean Clancy property of Seycove athletics 2021. All Rights Reserved)
Feature High School Girls Basketball

15 players to watch in 2021-22: B.C. girls basketball Double-A ranks filled with a class of rising senior talent

LANGLEY — Based on the tier’s senior Class of 2020, a group filled with as much dynamic talent as we’ve perhaps ever seen, the Double-A girls Class of 2o22 has a lot to live up to.Yet consider all of the senior varsity experience they have already accumulated and the betting money says they won’t disappoint.Day […]

Few shoot the three-ball like Jenna Talib, a rising Grade 10 at West Vancouver's Mulgrave School. (Photo by Mark Steffens property of Mulgrave athletics 2021. All Rights Reserved)
Feature High School Girls Basketball

15 Players to Watch in 2021-22: Our four-day run of B.C.’s top rising girls hoops talent opens with kudos to Single-A’s small-school excellence!

Welcome to Day 1 of March Madness.Today, in lieu of a 2021 B.C. senior girls basketball championship run which was to have begun this week, we present our first look at next season.Coaches from all four tiers of the B.C. Secondary Schools Girls Basketball Association put their heads together to select 15 Players to Watch […]

You can re-watch the Britannia Bruins and Langley Christian Lightning in their 2020 B.C. AA title clash this week. (Photo by Paul Yates property of Vancouver Sports Pictures 2020. All Rights Reserved)
Feature High School Girls Basketball

Tsumura: Join me for the LEC’s Must-See-TV! Tune in Tuesday to Saturday for classic re-plays of B.C. senior girls, junior boys championship finals!

LANGLEY — Last season, observers labelled the 2020 B.C. junior boys championship final between St. Pat’s and Sir Winston Churchill one of the best high school basketball games they had ever seen… at any level.How about that classic, as well as a huge helping of some of the best recent B.C. senior girls basketball championship […]

B.C. high school basketball's annual finale has fallen strangely silent this season. Nonetheless, Varsity Letters is determined to celebrate the spirit of March Madness. (Photo by Wilson Wong 2021. All Rights Reserved)
Feature High School Girls Basketball

Welcome to March Madness! Varsity Letters tips it all off Monday as we begin the four-day countdown of B.C.’s Top Girls Players to Watch in 2021-22!

Welcome to March Madness!While we all recognize our shared fortune in being able to complete last season’s 2019-20 B.C. boys and girls basketball championships just days ahead of the global pandemic’s arrival, there is, of course, the disappointing reality of having this season’s provincial tournaments cancelled.And although any kind of virtual celebration of our yearly […]

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 […]

A cancelled 2020-21 U SPORTS season will wind up being the final one for UBC's Gabrielle Laguerta. (Photo by Richard Lam property of UBC athletics 2021. All Rights Reserved)
Feature High School Girls Basketball University Women's Basketball

UBC’s Gabrielle Laguerta: Despite her battle scars and lost senior season, ‘Birds senior celebrates the silver lining of basketball’s shared experience

VANCOUVER —As Gabrielle Laguerta has gone about playing her role in the strangest year of our lives, UBC’s fifth-year senior guard has so often felt like an actor rehearsing her lines for a Broadway production she knows  will never see the light of opening night.“I’ll come off a good practice where I’ve tried out this […]

Chris Kennedy, a 1991 McNair Secondary grad, has coached basketball in B.C. since the 1987-88 season. The Superintendent of Schools for West Vancouver most recently guided Richmond's R.A. McMath Wildcats senior girls team. (Photo by Howard Tsumura property of VarsityLetters.ca 2020. All Rights Reserved)
Feature High School Boys Basketball High School Girls Basketball

VL Podcast 01.13.21: Author, author! Chris Kennedy takes his ‘Culture of Yes’ into its second decade with a message more relevant than ever

LANGLEY — Happy New Year. Our first podcast of 2021 features Chris Kennedy, Superintendent of Schools for West Vancouver, and a lifelong B.C. high school basketball coach. Kennedy’s popular blog Culture of Yes is now in its 11th year, and today the Richmond native stops by to engage our provincial audience with everything that the […]

Semiahmoo head coach Allison McNeill reflects on her playing and coaching career. (Photo by Howard Tsumura property of VarsityLetters.ca 2020. All Rights Reserved)
Feature High School Girls Basketball University Women's Basketball

VL Podcast 11.25.20: Canadian coaching great Allison McNeill reflects on a hoops life with stops at Oregon, Semiahmoo, Laurentian, SFU and more!

This week, the Varsity Letters podcast welcomes a giant in Canadian basketball circles. Allison McNeill has touched the stars at every level at which she has played or coached, and today we cover some of the facets of her basketball life that don’t get as much attention!   But first, we will talk with Coach […]

Okanagan Mission's Makenna Jacklin will play her collegiate basketball with the Idaho Vandals beginning in 2021-22. (Photo graphic property of Idaho Vandals athletics 2020. All Rights Reserved)
Feature High School Girls Basketball

Makenna Jacklin: She’s not just a post player! OKM’s 6-foot-1 star works to extend game beyond arc ahead of NCAA D-1 career with Idaho Vandals

LANGLEY — If Makenna Jacklin has her druthers, the trajectory of her NCAA Div. 1 basketball career is going to follow a script similar to the one she so dramatically penned en route to helping her Okanagan Mission Huskies beat East Vancouver’s Britannia Bruins in the championship final of last December’s Tsumura Basketball Invitational at […]