By Howard TsumuraVarsityLetters.caLANGLEY — The Trinity Western Spartans did not qualify for last season’s U SPORTS women’s national championship tournament held across town at UBC.Yet none of that means the Spartans went into this past off-season unaware of what it’s like to play the country’s best with both team’s seasons on the line.“We played Saskatchewan […]
University Women’s Basketball
A Sunday Read: Meet Dave Taylor! With 2025-26 season set for Friday tip, UBC’s new women’s basketball coach finds connection through player empowerment & paying homage to Thunderbirds hoops history!
By Howard TsumuraVarsityLetters.caVANCOUVER — If you believe in the unseen forces of the basketball universe, then maybe you can better understand the kind of pressure the game’s mythical matchmakers were under this past summer when it came time to finding the next head coach of the UBC Thunderbirds women’s basketball team.Their task?Could they pair what […]
A little left, a little right… OK, perfect! UBC’s Mona Berlitz finds her true basketball centre in the presence of team! Her journey from Germany to Vancouver now pointed at run to Final 8 national spoils!
VANCOUVER — When it comes to conversing, German is always going to be her native language.Yet there’s two others that UBC Thunderbirds’ 6-foot third-year forward Mona Berlitz seems to be able to speak with equal fluency.One is the English language and the other is the language of basketball.Put them all together and nothing gets lost […]
She’s the Red Leaf rising! Myrlaine Shelvey hits six triples and Simon Fraser flirts with GNAC’s free throw record in much-needed 83-68 win over Western Oregon’s Wolves!
BURNABY MOUNTAIN — Myrlaine Shelvey knows the one thing her basketball team needs most is secondary scoring.On Thursday, as Simon Fraser continued a three-game home stand against a visiting Western Oregon Wolves team tied with them at 3-6, both locked just outside of playoff contention in the Great Northwest Athletic Conference standings, the redshirt sophomore […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
Bruce Langford: Simon Fraser women’s head basketball coach reaches 500-win milestone with Seniors’ Night win over WWU! “Who would have thought a 51-year-old high school coach could get 500 wins? Not me!”
BURNABY MOUNTAIN — It was about two years ago that Bruce Langford decided to make a donation.Just ahead of his 70th birthday, Simon Fraser’s longtime women’s basketball coach decided to pay forward his own hoops education by packing up his 100 or so coaching books and manuals so that the impressionable minds of the future […]
SFU women’s basketball: Arman Dulai puts her stamp on Red Leafs’ red-letter day as first walk-on starter in team’s NCAA era!
BURNABY — When it comes to beating the odds during this current decade-plus NCAA era of Simon Fraser women’s basketball, Arman Dulai may well have everyone beat.When the 5-foot-9 junior guard from Surrey found out that she was going to be announced in the starting line-up for this past Saturday’s home game against Seattle Pacific, […]
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 […]