By Howard TsumuraVarsityLetters.caVANCOUVER — When you perform within basketball’s most sacred space, you earn the most special moniker of having played like you were ‘unconscious’.On its own, hitting 6-of-8 three-pointers in a game doesn’t necessarily qualify as such, yet it certainly makes a case for itself when so early in your university career, just weeks […]
Tag: UBC Thunderbirds
A SUNDAY READ: UBC stuns No. 1-ranked, defending national champ Victoria, snapping Vikes’ 33-game win streak with stoic resilience and improved prowess in the paint!
By Howard TsumuraVarsityLetters.caVANCOUVER — Was the biggest surprise on Friday night the way in which the UBC Thunderbirds turned in one of their most inspired and complete team performances in recent memory en route to defeating the No. 1-ranked team in the country?Or was it, upon hearing the final horn sound in its 93-87 win […]
Adversity has prepared UBC’s fifth-year senior guard Olivia Weekes for the ‘gravity’ of any situation! U SPORTS’ No. 4-ranked ‘Birds renew cross-water rivalry Friday vs. Victoria Vikes!
By Howard TsumuraVarsityLetters.caVANCOUVER — Olivia Weekes can do so many different things on the basketball court so well, perhaps it’s no surprise that in recorded UBC Thunderbirds’ program history, she sits in the Top 15 of 10 different major statistical categories.And along the way what has been most clear are the ways in which the […]
Buchanan Cup 2025: As the timeless SFU vs. UBC men’s basketball rivalry gets Nov. 15 re-start atop Burnaby Mountain, it’s time to examine the weird, wonderful origin story 1968’s debut crosstown clash!
By Howard Tsumura(VarsityLetters.ca and Special for Simon Fraser Athletics)BURNABY — If the Buchanan Cup could speak, the first thing you’d hear would be a chuckle most identifiable as a last laugh.Too many times a pawn in the machinations of the Lower Mainland’s two most enduring university athletic programs, it has nonetheless aged with dignity to […]
UBC-Trinity Western men’s hoops: Fifth-year vet Tobi Akinkunmi earns kudos for new three-point prowess! Thunderbirds unleash long-bomb barrage early to top host Spartans in early-season crosstown clash at LEC!
By Howard TsumuraVarsityLetters.caLANGLEY — The UBC Thunderbirds may only be one weekend into the new Canada West men’s season, but they’re shooting the basketball from distance like they’re in mid-season form.On Saturday night at the Langley Events Centre, the Birds came bursting out of the gates behind the three-point shooting of fifth-year forward Tobi Akinkunmi, […]
Musing on the Magic of Miracle Comebacks: At the confluence of down, distance and desperation, UBC’s youthful football ‘Birds shed tackles and tropes with miraculous playoff-clinching OT win at Regina!
By Howard TsumuraVarsityLetters.caWhen you’ve marched out the kind of young core that the 2025 UBC Thunderbirds have this season, on both offence and defence, and you’ve made a commitment to keep those student-athletes engaged in that day-to-day, game-to-game development space, you have to expect that the downs may initially outweigh the ups.Yet while the process […]
From Kevin Hanson to Phil Jalalpoor, examining how torch-passing former point guards pay forward a coaching legacy which beats strong at the heart and history of UBC men’s basketball!
BY HOWARD TSUMURA(VarsityLetters.ca)VANCOUVER — First as a player, then later as an assistant coach, Phil Jalalpoor cut his teeth in the university hoops world under the mentorship of one of the most successful head coaches in the history of Canadian university basketball.Kevin Hanson, the hard-nosed former UBC point guard who went on to forge the […]
Trinity Western women’s hoops: With Victoria and UBC providing a challenging opening-weekend slate, Spartans open Canada West play ready to make every lesson count!
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 […]
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 […]
UBC Football: ‘Birds surrender 17 points in final 93 seconds of opening half en route to 24-10 loss to No. 5 Huskies in 2025’s final home game! Playoff lives now hang in the balance with road finale at Regina!
By Howard TsumuraVarsityLetters.caVANCOUVER — A team of the world’s best surgeons, each armed with golden scalpels, could have dissected the box score of Friday’s Canada West football game at Thunderbird Stadium until all that remained were ribbons and been no closer to explaining how the hometown Thunderbirds dropped a near must-win 24-10 decision to the […]