Terry Fox's Brendan Nightingale brought his scoring touch to the Ravens' biggest game of the season, a B.C. tourney-clinching win over the Burnaby Mountain Lions in the Quad-A Fraser North semifinals. (Photo by Howard Tsumura property of VarsityLetters.ca 2022 All Rights Reserved)
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Punching B.C. tourney tickets: On Friday, here’s how Terry Fox, Heritage Woods, Kelowna and Dover Bay all found their way to The Big Dance!

LANGLEY — The beauty of the last week of February as it pertains to the B.C. senior boys high school basketball world?Many purists will tell you that it is within this window of zone playdowns and provincial championship qualification, that you actually get to see the best teams begin to touch their ceilings.Tonight, as we […]

The top six teams at four tiers of B.C. boys high school basketball remained unchanged this week. (Photo by Wilson Wong 2021. All Rights Reserved)
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B.C. boys ranks 02.22.23 edition: W.J. Mouat Hawks move into Quad-A Top 10, Kits Blue Demons continue late-season climb! Here’s the latest Top 10s at four tiers!

LANGLEY — The calm before the full-force storm of zone championships?That’s the pocket much of B.C.’s top senior boys basketball sat in this past week as the top six teams at all four tiers remain unchanged.There was plenty of jockeying going on behind the scenes, however, setting the stage for the 11th-hour stretch drive to […]

Burnaby South's Lordrikk Gutierrez (centre) looks to gain some separation in the open floor from Tamanawis Wildcats Mintu Chahal (left) and Gursewak Mann in second-round play last season on Day 1 of the 2022 B.C. junior boys championships at the LEC. Burnaby South eliminated Tamanawis in the Sweet 16 matchup. This season both teams are among the event's top four seeds. (Photo by Howard Tsumura property of Varsity Letters 2022. All Rights Reserved.
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Surrey’s Tamanawis Wildcats hold No. 1 seed heading into 32-team B.C. junior boys tournament! No. 2 Van College, No. 3 Bby South and No. 4 Sullivan Heights provide the push heading into Saturday’s opening tip-off at LEC!

No public high school from Surrey has managed to win the B.C. junior boys basketball championships.The Tamanawis Wildcats, installed as the No. 1 seed in the 32-team event set to tip off Saturday at the Langley Events Centre, have a chance to change all of that if they live up to their top billing within […]

St. George's head coach Guy da Silva has his Saints sitting at No. 3 in B.C. Quad-A following its win over arch-rival Vancouver College. (Photo by Howard Tsumura property of VarsityLetters.ca 2019. All Rights Reserved)
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B.C. boys ranks 02.15.23 edition: All hail Sea-to-Sky hoops! West Van, Kits surge to give VSS five of Quad-A’s Top 10 teams!

LANGLEY — Two of B.C. high school basketball’s tradition-laden top-tiered programs flashed a little something-something, hinting that, late in the campaign, they have each uncovered a little DNA of the yesteryear variety.The West Vancouver Highlanders, 73-70 regular-season winners back on May 7 over its cross-zone rivals from North Vancouver, the Handsworth Royals, carried that momentum […]

Dover Bay's scoring leader and senior Luke Linder has helped his Dolphins to a No. 2 ranking at Triple-A as the playoff season begins in B.C. senior boys high school basketball. (Photo by Wilson Wong 2023. All Rights Reserved)
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Dover Bay boys basketball 2022-23: Inspired by the legacy of its 2007 B.C. champs, Nanaimo’s Triple-A No. 2-ranked Dolphins put in the hard work needed to make a March Madness splash at the LEC!

Hoops karma is hard to actually describe, but in the early days of February, all you need to do is look at the B.C. senior boys basketball rankings to know that the 2023 Vancouver Island brand is as richly flavourful as anything you’re choosing to spread across your morning toast.From Victoria to Mill Bay to […]

Lord Byng's Quinn Handy faces a double-team from North Delta's Harvir Hothi (left) and Krishian Jeet during play at the 2022 Tsumura Basketball Invitational this past December at the Langley Events Centre. (Photo by Howard Tsumura property of Varsity Letters 2023. All Rights Reserved)
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Savouring the season! As B.C. high school hoops playoffs begin, we appreciate the game through the eyes of Lord Byng coach Kevin Sandher who says: “The days are long, but the years go quick!”

VANCOUVER — For everything the B.C. high school sports world has endured over the past number of seasons, there is once again, thankfully, that feeling of normalcy… something that comes with the first fully-unencumbered regular-season of basketball since 2019-20.It’s made the simple act of moving from league contests to those of the post-season variety something […]

Splitting the Steveston London defence, Dionycius Bakare of Vancouver's King George Dragons goes up for two of his 27 points in an 82-54 win, Jan. 21 at UBC's War Memorial Gymnasium. (Photo by Howard Tsumura property of Varsity Letters 2023. All Rights Reserved)
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King George’s Dionycius Bakare: A study in humility and gravity-defying hops, Dragons’ Grade 10 star already gliding in rare air!

VANCOUVER — Maybe the best way to describe the daily development of one of the most exciting young talents in recent B.C. boys basketball history is to say that Dionycius Bakare is going through two growth spurts at the same time.By the most standard of measures, the prodigiously-talented Grade 10 guard with Vancouver’s King George […]

Finlay Chow-White (right) and the rest of East Vancouver's Tupper Tigers moved into back into familiar territory Wednesday, sitting No. 10 in the most recent B.C. Triple-A rankings. (Photo by Howard Tsumura property of VarsityLetters.ca 2023 All Rights Reserved)
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B.C. boys Top 10 hoop ranks 02.01.23 edition: West Vancouver, Tupper, Mulgrave make late surges as hoop calendar turns to February!

LANGLEY — Top threes remained consistent across all four tiers of B.C. boys high school basketball as the countdown to March Madness hit the one-month mark on Wednesday. Quad-A remained as quiet as it has all season, yet unranked West Vancouver’s 77-68 road win Monday at former No. 9 Kitsilano has pushed the Highlanders into honourable […]

With its logo featuring both the brain and a basketball, Bigger Than Basketball event founder Bradley Braich is turning the gathering point of the gymnasium into a place where it's just as easy to talk about mental health as it is to work on your jumper. (Photo by Ryan Molag property of Langley Events Centre 2023 All Rights Reserved)
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A Sunday Read: Five years his after mental health struggles nearly claimed him, ex-Yale hoops star Bradley Braich is a UBC neuroscience major whose life defines ‘Bigger Than Basketball’

Today, I wanted to share with you a little about the history of the most important story we have been able to tell here at Varsity Letters, and how that story’s subject has grown in ways which truly surpass the margins of the written page.Just weeks shy of five years ago, a courageous 17-year-old basketball […]

The Oak Bay Bays and host Vancouver College Fighting Irish were among the top three finishers this past weekend at the Irish's own Emerald invitational. (Photo by Gary Ahuja property of Langley Events Centre 2022. All Rights Reserved)
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B.C. boys Top 10 rankings 01.25.23 edition: Quad-A V.C. Irish, Triple-A St. Pat’s each nab fresh, new No. 1 ranks as Semiahmoo, Dover Bay each slip to into No. 2 slots! We’ve got all four tiers right here!

LANGLEY — For the first time this 2022-23 B.C. senior boys basketball season, there are new No. 1’s atop of the province’s two largest tiers of competition.Surrey’s Semiahmoo Thunderbirds fell from Quad-A 1 and were replaced by former No. 2 Vancouver College after falling to the host Irish 96-88 at the Emerald invitational final on […]