By Howard Tsumura
VarsityLetters.ca
LANGLEY — 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, who set the tone for the evening off the opening tip with a three-pointer eight seconds in. The Calgary native proceeded to finish the first quarter 4-for-4 from beyond the long line as UBC (7-0, 2-0 Canada West) won 93-82 over the host Trinity Western Spartans (2-2, 0-2) in a game that was a lot more decisive than the final score might indicate.
Already this season, in six total games, Akinkumni is shooting 15-of-29 (.517) after going 16-of-75 (.213) all of last season.
On the night, UBC shot 14-of-32 (42.9 per cent) from three-point range, numbers which followed hot on the heels of an equally-efficient 12-of-28 (42.9 per cent) outing in its conference-opening 85-67 win over the Fraser Valley Cascades on Friday at War Memorial Gymnasium.
“Yeah, we like that shot within our game,” said UBC interim head coach Phil Jalalpoor after the contest. “We kind of try to play to more of what a defence gives us. But we have shooters, they have their roles, they try to be aggressive and stretch the floor, so we’re unpredictable. I think if we continue to move the ball inside-out, because we are a threat and we create good shots, that kind of creates a higher percentage obviously.”
The net result?
Akinkunmi, along with big guard Nylan Roberts and post-forward Nikola Guzina, each scored 14 points, with Roberts adding a team-high 11 rebounds and Guzina eight caroms.
Guard Gus Goerzen also hit four triples (4-of-5) for the winners and finished with 12 points, while point guard Holt Tomie had 11 points and eight rebounds.
“We wanted to come in having that professional mindset that this is not an easy place to play, and they run a great program here,” Jalalpoor continued of the Spartans. “I was really proud of our approach to start. We weren’t scared. We were the aggressors coming out, and that was our goal heading into the game.”
UBC had built its lead to as many as 31 points in the early moments of the fourth quarter before the Spartans subbed in the guard trio of Tyus DeVries, Logan Stewart and Tyler Sipma, then watched the trio find instant karma as they scored 28 points of their combined 32 points in the fourth quarter, highlighted by a combined 6-of-9 stroke from outside. Devries finished with 14 points and Logan Stewart, the hometown freshman from Brookswood Secondary, added 11.
Guards Markus Shankar (13 points) and Pearse Long (11) were the Spartans’ top scoring starters.
“I mean, for an 11-point loss, it felt like a hundred-point loss,” admitted TWU head coach Trevor Pridie whose charges had put forth a much more complete effort the night before in Victoria where they had fallen 98-91 to the defending national champion Vikes.
“Oh, yeah, I mean, a really tough opening weekend,” continued Pridie, now in his ninth season at the helm of the Spartans. “I mean, we’re trying to build a foundation for the season with this weekend. So I was really happy with yesterday’s performance (a 98-91 loss at defending U SPORTS national champion Victoria), and then we come out today, and I thought we just didn’t have it today. And I don’t want to blame this schedule. We just didn’t play well. (UBC) played well. Credit to them.”
The Spartans could only blame themselves for what was a tough evening at the free throw line where they went 4-of-14.
And although they also hit 14 triples on the night, they were 8-of-29 (28 per cent) from outside before catching fire in the fourth with the game already well out of reach.
The two teams won’t face each other again until a Feb. 9-10 weekend at UBC.
Clearly, the Spartans know that a portion of their game plan against UBC in the new year will be to slow Akinkunmi’s three-point shooting prowess.
“I mean, I give credit to a guy like Tobi who came into the league years ago and wasn’t a three-point shooter… but clearly shooting it really well this year,” said Pridie of Akinkumni who is already one of the top defensive players in the conference.
“There were times back when we played them before where we’d guard him with our five man and sag off him, and now you have to respect him as a shooter. So good for him to develop that.
“Sometimes, some teams have those nights and sometimes you don’t. I thought it was one of those nights where it was their night, and it wasn’t ours.”
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