UBC head coach Dave Taylor addresses his team during his coaching debut, Oct. 3 at home to visiting Queen's at War Memorial Gymnasium. (Photo by Howard Tsumura property of VarsityLetters.ca 2025. All rights reserved)
Feature 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 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 […]

When UBC head coach Deb Huband cut down the nets back in 2004, she was bringing the Bronze baby back to Point Grey for the first time in 30 years. (Photo by Richard Lam property of UBC athletics 2019. All Rights Reserved)
Feature University Women's Basketball

From Debbie to Deb: How UBC’s iconic women’s hoop coach Huband has found balance on her journey towards a signature milestone

VANCOUVER — If playing and coaching represent the two sides of the basketball brain, then a life well-lived in both is a life which has achieved a rare level of balance… in some cases as spherically-perfect as the ball itself.

After setting a UBC women's single-game record with 27 rebounds earlier this season in a win over Victoria, Keylyn Filewich poses with the game ball. (Photo by Wilson Wong property of UBC athletics 2019. All Rights Reserved)
Feature University Women's Basketball

UBC’s Keylyn Filewich: How the ‘Birds star third-year post added even more mojo to her already-deadly inside game

VANCOUVER — Keylyn Filewich may have introduced herself to the Canada West with a breakout campaign last season that was big on tried-and-true low post moves.

Latest 'Birds recruit Olivia Morgan-Cherchas came together with UBC head coach Deb Huband after the South Kam product signed up for university career Saturday with the Blue and Gold. (Photo by Jeff Sargeant property of UBC athletics)
UBC's second-year forward Madison Legault and the rest of the improving Thunderbirds open the 2018-19 Canada West regular season Friday at home to the Saskatchewan Huskies. (Photo by Richard Lam property of UBC athletics)
Feature University Women's Basketball

UBC women’s basketball: On eve of 2018-19 season-opener, ‘Birds head coach Huband see a talented core set for “a coming of age”

VANCOUVER — The best way to describe just how close last season’s youthful UBC Thunderbirds’ women’s basketball team came to achieving a breakthrough campaign would be to imagine longtime head coach Deb Huband holding up a hand with her thumb and index finger about an inch apart.

UBC's Keylyn Filewich is flashing star potential towards the end of her second season with the 'Birds. (Bob Frid/UBC athletics)
Feature University Women's Basketball

This ‘Key’ unlocks the future: UBC’s Keylyn Filewich opens the door and befriends her inner basketball beast

VANCOUVER — Keylyn Filewich emerged from an impromptu one-on-one chat with her head coach one day not too long ago, realizing to a certain extent that she has just discovered her mission statement.

What does your picture of passion for life look like? This is Hailey Counsell's. (Varsity Letters photo by Howard Tsumura)
Feature High School Girls Basketball

Hailey Counsell: Watching Heritage Woods’ UBC-bound senior star reminds us all why passion for the game carries the day

COQUITLAM — Passion for basketball can come in a magnitude of degrees, but along the trail of a long season spent wandering through gymnasiums, you don’t easily forget the ones you score as perfect 10s.

The most important road trip the UBC Thunderbirds have taken this season was to Cuba over the winter break. (Photo courtesy UBC women's basketball)
Feature University Women's Basketball

Havana hoops holiday helps harvest ‘eureka’ moments, Huband’s UBC Thunderbirds grow together in time to make late-season surge

VANCOUVER — Listen to Deb Huband talk about the ever-evolving state of the youngest team she has ever coached in her 23 seasons at the helm of the UBC Thunderbirds women’s basketball program, and one phrase — ‘eureka moments’ — stands out above all the others.