(By HOWARD TSUMURA, varsityletters.ca)Luke Howard’s final basket of the night on Thursday did a lot to prove the notion that the Simon Fraser Red Leafs’ two-game home sweep last week at the hands of the Great Northwest Athletic Conference’s two Alaska schools didn’t come in vain.In fact when Howard set a high screen for teammate […]
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A Red Leaf’s rising! For Abby’s Luke Howard, seven seasons on the U.S. hoops road leads to a breakthrough homecoming at Simon Fraser as GNAC home slate opens Thursday!
By Howard TsumuraBURNABY — Luke Howard’s climb to reach the summit of his college basketball career has been interminably long, at times undoubtedly lonely and beset with enough re-starts to wobble even the most unflappable of hardcourt warriors.Yet at 7 p.m. on Thursday — seven years, four schools, a global pandemic and a torn ACL […]
SFU women’s basketball notebook: The rise of senior Sophia Wisotzki to NCAA D-2’s No. 2 scorer, plus West Region tidbits and all there is to love about the Red Leafs’ press!
BURNABY — Simon Fraser’s Sophia Wisotzki is more used to making the news every time she brings her dynamic two-way game to the court this season for the Red Leafs’ basketball team.On Wednesday night, however, she had the news delivered to her.“Oh, I didn’t know that,” the 6-foot senior guard and kinesiology major admitted when […]
Simon Fraser’s Irish Coquia: As backcourt injuries mount, former St. Pat’s star comes of age in NCAA behind career-high 34 points, 10 assists in Red Leafs’ 2-OT win!
BURNABY — Soloist and conductor.The wheel of attrition has ground down especially hard on the Simon Fraser men’s basketball team over the first month of its 2024-25 season.And as its ranks have thinned at the guard spots, the Red Leafs’ urgency to get performance from one of its youngest players has grown exponentially over the […]
A Sunday Read: As UBC’s Kevin Hanson becomes fifth member of U Sports’ 600-win hoops club, the ‘Birds 25-year head coach reflects on what brings true meaning to milestone moments!
VANCOUVER — On a night when Kevin Hanson joined one of the most exclusive coaching fraternities in all of U Sports men’s basketball, there was still no confusing the fact that nothing worth celebrating had ever been earned in a vacuum.Yet don’t misunderstand just how much it meant to the UBC head coach that his […]
What? It’s been 33 years! Indeed, it’s been since Jan. of 1991 that UBC has faced Victoria in a No. 1 vs. No. 2! Ahead of weekend clash, let’s all take a trip in Howie’s Hoops Time Machine!
VANCOUVER — If you asked the basketball gods to describe the perfect weekend of men’s university basketball in the province of British Columbia, they would tell you it’s beyond words.But they’d also let you know that if you want to see it live and in-person, all you’ve got to do is head to UBC’s historic […]
UBC men’s basketball 2024-25: With its “equal-opportunity system” thriving, No. 2 Thunderbirds clash with visiting, No. 1 Vikes as eyes of Canadian university hoop world focus on War Memorial Gym!
VANCOUVER — It’s mid-November, his UBC Thunderbirds have already played 16 games… and won them all.“But I still don’t know who our best five guys are when it comes to playing the best together,” head coach Kevin Hanson explained following practice Wednesday.With his No. 2 nationally-ranked ‘Birds set to play host to the No. 1-ranked […]
With its first national ranking in six years, No. 3 UBC women host arch-rival Victoria in rematch of last season’s Vikes’ playoff win! Newcomers set to bolster Thunderbirds’ deep roster!
VANCOUVER — Last season, during her debut at the helm of UBC Thunderbirds’ women’s basketball program, Isabel Ormond took what can only be described as an impressive first trip around the block with her young charges.It was one of those journeys where everything they encountered — both good and bad — was grist for the […]
Tracing the football journey of W.J. Mouat Hawks grad Ercy Avul: From Abbotsford to Saskatoon, his late heroics help Sask Huskies grab Hardy Cup finals berth!
VANCOUVER — How long had Ercy Avul worked and waited for what was about as glorious a 108-second span a football player can experience?Last Saturday, Saskatchewan receiver and Abbotsford-W.J. Mouat grad Avul, who prior to the current campaign had missed three of his last four seasons, announced himself with two brilliant plays over the final […]
Press to play! Simon Fraser Red Leafs women’s hoops debuts a full-court defensive scheme to impressive results at NCAA Div. 2 Canadian Tip-Off Classic!
VANCOUVER — They may be just three games into a new season, yet Simon Fraser head coach Bruce Langford does not hesitate when asked to describe the 2024-25 edition of Red Leafs women’s basketball team.“I think we play a more exciting style than we have played for many years,” Langford began this past Sunday after […]