Sir Winston Churchill's Marah Dykstra will help lead her team as one of the new additions to the 20-team field at the 2021 Tsumura Basketball Invitational at the Langley Events Centre. (Photo by Wilson Wong property of Wilson Wong 2021. All Rights Reserved)
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Tsumura Basketball Invitational: Churchill, Seaquam, SMUS join girls draw as boys, girls 40-team field now official for December 2021!

LANGLEY — We are thrilled with the 40 teams who have now finalized their participation in this coming December’s 2021 boys and girls Tsumura Basketball Invitationals at the Langley Events Centre.(The full list of finalized teams is included at the bottom of this story)Yet what has us even more excited is the response we have […]

Fingers are crossed that high school basketball can make its comeback for the 2021-22 season, and with that, the return of the TBI at the LEC. (Photo by Howard Tsumura property of Varsity Letters 2021. All Rights Reserved)
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Tsumura Basketball Invitational: Optimism rules as we set tentative Dec. 2021 dates for an LEC return! Here’s our list of 40 boys and girls teams!

LANGLEY — Hope springs eternal here with all of us behind the scenes at the Tsumura Basketball Invitational.While our annual two weeks of early-season ‘Welcome Back’ to the B.C. senior boys and girls basketball world was, of course, cancelled this past December due to the global pandemic, we here at the TBI have our fingers […]

Lord Tweedsmuir Panthers' rising senior guard Alyza Aikins will lead her team into the 2020 Tsumura Basketball Invitational this December at the Langley Events Centre. (Photo by Howard Tsumura property of VarsityLetters.ca 2020. All Rights Reserved)
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Twenty teams for TBI 2020! Our roster for the annual senior girls Tsumura Basketball Invitational features B.C.’s best of the best!

LANGLEY — Our collective fingers are crossed with the hope that a safe fall and winter season is on the horizon for high school sports in the province of B.C.And in the spirit of that positivity, we hope that one of the final highlights of a challenging 2020 calendar year will be the latest edition of […]

Kelowna's Jarred Taylor (23) pays the price for guarding Centennial's Dom Parolin during Saturday's Tsumura Basketball Invitational championship final at the Langley Events Centre. (Photo by Howard Tsumura property of VarsityLetters.ca 2019. All Rights Reserved)
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TBI Boys 2019 Final: Parolin unparalleled! Centennial superstar pours home 41, stuffs stat sheet in title win over Kelowna Owls

LANGLEY — At one point pretty early on in Saturday’s Tsumura Basketball Invitational championship final, it became pretty clear that the Dom Parolin who was patrolling the court at the Langley Events Centre for Coquitlam’s No. 3-ranked Centennial Centaurs had stepped onto the hardcourt straight off the pages of a super-hero comic book.

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TSUMURA BASKETBALL INVITATIONAL 2019: Your complete boys draw to the 20-team, four-day (Dec. 4-7) LEC hoops extravaganza!

LANGLEY — We’ve grown to 20 teams this season.The 2019 Tsumura Basketball Invitational will run Dec. 4-7 at the Langley Events Centre.Day 1 featured a new, eight-team opening round with the winners plugging into Day 2’s  16-team draw.Final Four Friday will be followed by championship Saturday as the best boys Quad-A and Triple-A teams take […]

Britannia guard Shemaiah Abatayo will enter her senior season with the Bruins by leading the Vancouver school at the 2019 TBI. (Photo by Howard Tsumura property of VarsityLetters.ca 2018. All Rights Reserved)
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Girls 2019 Tsumura Basketball Invitational: Our 20-team field features some of B.C.’s blue-chip best, plus a core of rising newcomers

LANGLEY — We opened our week by presenting the 20 teams taking part in the eighth-annual boys Tsumura Basketball Invitational. Today, here’s our look at the field for the 20-team girls tournament, set to run Dec. 11-14:TBI 2019GIRLSARGYLE PIPERS — Plenty of height with a trio of six-foot-plus players in Gabby Francis, Ella Mellinghaus and Julia […]

Walnut Grove's Tavia Rowell, picked tourney MVP, dished the rock like never before Saturday night in helping her Gators win the 2018 girls Tsumura Basketball Invitational at the Langley Events Centre. (Photo by Wilson Wong property of UBC Athletics 2018. All Rights Reserved)
Kelowna's Nicole Torozan (left) is guarded by Riverside's Jessica Parker during TBI semifinals Saturday at the Langley Events Centre. (Photo by Howard Tsumura property of VarsityLetters.ca 2018. All Rights Reserved)
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TBI 2018: Defending tourney champ Walnut Grove to face Riverside in Saturday’s 8 p.m. title final at the LEC

The semifinal portion of championship Saturday here at the Langley Events Centre is over. The Riverside Rapids of Port Coquitlam will face Langley’s Walnut Grove Gators in tonight’s 8 p.m. Tsumura Basketball Invitational 2018 title game.

Riverside's Sammy Shields (right) tries to bring the ball back into safety against St. Thomas Aquinas' Caelan Prescott during Friday's TBI quarterfinal played at the LEC. (Photo by Howard Tsumura property of VarsityLetters.ca 2018. All Rights Reserved)
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TBI 2018: PoCo’s Final Four-bound Riverside Rapids play “…like the Kansas City Chiefs” of B.C. girls high school hoops

LANGLEY — Head coaches of high school girls basketball teams don’t often throw out NFL teams when they’re looking for comparables.

Kelowna senior Jaeli Ibbetson hits the pine to maintain hold of a loose ball and gets into a battle with Abbotsford's Grade 11 star Marin Lenz on Friday at the TBI quarters, staged at the LEC. (Photo by Howard Tsumura property of VarsityLetters.ca 2018. All Rights Reserved)
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TBI 2018: En route to Final Four, Ibbetson and Kelowna’s parliament of Owls show a wisdom worthy of defending B.C. AAA champs

LANGLEY — Kennedy Dickie had Canada Basketball duty this weekend, and thus had to pass on the 2018 Tsumura Basketball Invitational.