NORTH DELTA — Only 212 more days!
The 2017 boys Tsumura Basketball Invitational doesn’t tip off its three-day run at the Langley Events Centre until Dec. 7.
But that doesn’t mean we can’t unveil the 16-team field now.
Seven teams from Varsity Letter’s Big 10 Quad A Pre-Preseason rankings will take part in pre-holiday event, as well as five teams from the Preseason B.C. Triple A rankings.
Included among that group are the No. 1 Quad A Holy Cross Crusaders and the No. 1 Triple A South Kamloops Titans.
We’ll be featuring all 16 teams individually in the long run-up to TBI 2017, and we’ll soon be unveiling our 16-team girls TBI field (Dec. 14-16 at the LEC) as well.
We’ll also, closer to the date, unveil each of the two tournament draws.
Here’s our list of boys teams with pre-preseason rank and tier in parenthesis.
QUAD A
Holy Cross Crusaders (Surrey, No. 1)
Oak Bay Bays (Victoria, No. 3)
Yale Lions (Abbotsford, No. 4)
Burnaby South Rebels (No. 5)
W.J. Mouat Hawks (Abbotsford, No. 6)
Walnut Grove Gators (Langley, No. 8)
Kelowna Owls (No. 9)
Lord Tweedsmuir Panthers (Surrey, honourable mention)
Terry Fox Ravens (Port Coquitlam, unranked)
Heritage Woods Kodiaks (Port Moody, unranked)
TRIPLE A
South Kamloops Titans (No. 1)
Byrne Creek Bulldogs (Burnaby, No. 3)
R.A. McMath Wildcats (Richmond, No. 4)
North Delta Huskies (No. 7)
Sir Charles Tupper Tigers (No. 8)
Duchess Park Condors (Prince George, unranked)
We are hoping that the 2017 TBI spotlights not only the acknowledged returning stars of the game in our province, but the emerging ones as well.
And to that end, three of teams which made the Final Four of the B.C. junior varsity championships are included in champion Burnaby South, runners-up Sir Charles Tupper and the North Delta Huskies.
The Rebels’ B.C. junior MVP Baltej Sohal, Tupper’s three-point shooting wizard Norben Bulosan and the Huskies’ Suraj Gahir are just three of top rising senior varsity talents in the province.
Of course there’s too many stars to possibly mention here, but don’t forget that Uyi Ologhola of Quad A No. 1 Holy Cross, the same kid who scored 37 points in an overtime quarterfinal win at the B.C. tourney over Vancouver College, is only going to be a 10th grader next season.
And as well, don’t forget how good Triple A is. It was just a few weeks ago that the Triple A team beat the Quad A team at the B.C. high school all-star game.
Let the countdown begin.
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