Terry Fox's Lauren Clements, Alisha Weloy and Ana-Maria Misic traded in their Ravens garb for a moment this week for a sneak peak of what the trio will look like in UFV Cascades' colours next season. The three are back in uniform tonight as B.C.'s No. 1-ranked Quad-A team opens play at the Tsumura Basketball Invitational at the Langley Events Centre. (Photo by Dan Kinvig property of University of the Fraser Valley athletics 2021. All Rights Reserved)
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A trio of Ravens sign with Fraser Valley Cascades women’s basketball: Misic, Weloy, Clements chart their Canada West futures together!

LANGLEY — In announcing on Thursday the signing of three players from the B.C. Quad-A No. 1-ranked Terry Fox Ravens senior girls basketball team, Fraser Valley Cascades head coach Al Tuchscherer was posed a question whose answer would speak best to the total impact of incoming the trio.If you were coaching a three-on-three team of […]

Simon Fraser's Jessica Wisotzki has undergone a renaissance in her offensive game at the university level. (Photo courtesy Simon Fraser athletics 2021. All Rights Reserved)
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Jessica Wisotzki: How the simple game of one-on-one helped show Simon Fraser’s super sophomore the way to unlock her true scoring talents!

BURNABY MOUNTAIN — Sometimes simple works best. Just ask Jessica Wisotzki.As the Simon Fraser women’s basketball teams continues preparation this week for its Great Northwest Athletic Conference opener Saturday (7 p.m.) in Bellingham against its arch rivals, the Western Washington Vikings, perhaps you have noticed a defined uptick in the sophomore guard-forward’s scoring numbers throughout […]

The Trinity Western Spartans headed into their Canada West bye week with a perfect 4-0 conference record. (Photo by Howard Tsumura property of Varsity Letters 2021. All Rights Reserved)
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Off to a perfect 4-0 start, Trinity Western Spartans women’s hoops reaps rewards of studious work during 2020’s cancelled campaign!

LANGLEY — They are the kinds of numbers which, through the real-life rigours of a cancelled COVID campaign, seem even more distant and faded than they really are.Yet ask Trinity Western women’s head basketball coach Cheryl Jean-Paul about the early signposts she has spotted with her Spartans’ club in the formative stages of the Canada […]

A new season, his 21st atop Burnaby Mountain, is just now underway for Simon Fraser head women's basketball coach Bruce Langford, who today, on Nov. 16, celebrates his 70th birthday. (Photo by Paul Yates property of SFU athletics 2021. All Rights Reserved)
Feature University Women's Basketball

Happy 70th birthday, Bruce Langford! The amazing journey of Simon Fraser’s ageless women’s basketball coach!

BURNABY MOUNTAIN — Ask Bruce Langford how many more seasons he is planning on coaching the Simon Fraser women’s basketball team, and instead of providing a direct answer, he quotes his wife Leslie.“When we go out to dinner with couples our age, they all bring up this ‘When is Bruce going to retire?’ stuff,’” Langford […]

Hailey Counsell's third season of play with the UBC Thunderbirds will sees her ascend to the biggest role of her U SPORTS career as one of the team's acknowledged veteran players. (Photo by Richard Lam property of UBC athletics 2021. All Rights Reserved)
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UBC women’s hoops 2021-22: War Gym a land of opportunity as youthful, untested ‘Birds open post-Huband era Thursday vs. TWU Spartans!

VANCOUVER — Its veterans are staring opportunity square in the face, and its rookies are going to get a chance to show early all it is that they are capable of becoming,It’s not the simplest of tasks to quantify just how different the first UBC Thunderbirds women’s basketball team of the post-Deb Huband era will […]

Fraser Valley point guard Maddy Gobeil and the rest of Abbotsford's Cascades learned a lot about their potential and process with a series of three preseason games against some of the best competition in Canada. (Photo by Dan Kinvig property of University of the Fraser Valley athletics 2021. All Rights Reserved)
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UFV Women’s Basketball 2021-22: Emerging Cascades keep bar set high following a revelatory three-game test against nation’s best teams!

ABBOTSFORD — Even in the best of times  it’s a difficult proposition to put together a preseason schedule and know precisely the level of competition you’re going to be facing.Factor in the uncertainties of COVID as well as the returning status of any number of opposition veterans forced to keep one eye on their academic […]

Simon Fraser's Jessica Jones has endured to enter her sixth season atop Burnaby Mountain. On Tuesday, SFU's senior guard was voted the GNAC's Preseason Player of the Year by the conference's coaches. (Photo property of SFU athletics 2021. All Rights Reserved)
Feature University Women's Basketball

The rise of SFU’s Basketball Jones: Jessica Jones doubted her game early, but with perseverance Simon Fraser’s senior guard named 2021-22 GNAC Preseason Player of the Year!

BURNABY — Tuesday was a day for Jessica Jones to understand, with a veteran’s perspective, the meaning of perseverance in the face of adversity.After discovering that she had been named the GNAC’s women’s basketball 2021-22 Preseason Player of the Year, Simon Fraser’s energetic, shot-making senior guard put it all into words as best she could.“It’s […]

Trinity Western point guard Kianna Wiens is part of a four-player core from the 2019-20 season which takes to the floor for the Spartans' home opener Thursday night against the Winnipeg Wesmen at the Langley Events Centre. (Photo by Scott Stewart property of TWU athletics 2021. All Rights Reserved)
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TWU women’s hoops 2021-22: Spartans’ veteran core excited to push the re-start button in home-opener vs. blue-chip Winnpeg Wesmen!

LANGLEY — Ask university coaches across the country what the search for cohesion, chemistry and identity within their rosters has been like coming off the COVID-cancelled 2020-21 season, and while each will have their own way of describing the challenges, all are delivered along the same thematic road of putting all the pieces back together […]

As Dani Langford, the Golden State Warriors' newly hired Manager of Player Rehabilitation gets a feel for new surroundings, she's never far from her roots as the point guard, playing for her dad Bruce on Simon Fraser University's 2005 national championship team. (Photos courtesy SFU athletics and Golden State Warriors 2021. All Rights Reserved. Photo graphic created by Gabriel Lynn)
Feature University Women's Basketball

A SUNDAY READ: Dani Langford’s passion for the poetry of motion: How SFU’s national championship MVP point guard found her way to the NBA’s Golden State Warriors!

Describing the intricacies of the human body in motion is a language unto itself.And for Danielle Langford, a young girl chasing her basketball dreams in the early-1990s, unlocking the true meaning of all that jargon was a constant source of fascination, something she herself realized every time the bumps and bruises the journey led her […]

Trinity Western freshman guard Shemaiah Abatayo was forced to hit the court running this season after six straight months of COVID lockdown in the Philippines kept her out of B.C. from March through August. (Photo by Mark Janzen property of Trinity Western athletics 2021. All Rights Reserved)
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Shemaiah Abatayo: As Trinity Western’s ‘rookie’ guard preps for a hopeful 2021-22 re-start, she dishes on six months of COVID-forced lockdown in the Philippines!

LANGLEY — Shemaiah Abatayo, like the rest of Canada’s hard-luck Class of 2020 university freshmen recruits, will get a second chance to make a rookie impression when U Sports basketball courts flash their figurative green lights this coming fall.Nothing could have beaten the on-court experience that a 2020-21 Canada West season would have provided Abatayo […]