By Howard Tsumura
Varsity Letters
VANCOUVER — The deeper they get into their season, it seems, the muddier, grittier and more single-minded of purpose these UBC Thunderbirds seem to become.
On Friday at War Memorial Gymnasium, UBC turned in its second straight pure-guts fourth quarter of their post-season, and as in last Sunday’s 75-69 win over the Alberta Pandas, seemed to just get bigger and better as Friday’s final frame ticked down.
Final score: UBC 74 Regina 68.
Next up: Hosting the Canada West championship final next week against the winner of the Saskatchewan vs. Calgary semifinal Saturday in Saskatoon, but most importantly, clinching a berth to the U Sports Final 8 national championship tournament.
Instead of a blow-by-blow account of the play, here’s what became most clear to your authour over the course of broadcasting the game on CanadaWest.TV with analyst and two-time former U SPORTS Defensive Player of the Year Katie Miyazaki, and later chatting with ‘Birds head coach Dave Taylor and fifth-year forward Jaeli Ibbetson.
1 FINDING HER COMFORT ZONE
On the theme of getting stronger against Regina as the game progressed, here’s a stat that shows just how determined and purposeful the ‘Birds have been over the second halves of their two playoff wins: UBC has taken almost three times as many combined free throw trips over the second halves of their wins over Alberta and Regina.
The ‘Birds combined to manufacture 47 trips to the stripe (33-of-47) while Alberta and Regina shot a combined 30 fewer free throws (14-of-17).
As well, in it’s win last week over Alberta, UBC went 16-of-20 from the charity striple in the fourth quarter.
And to top all that off, Ibbetson, who scored 11 of her team-high 18 points in the second half, exemplified the new post-season power injection the ‘Birds seemed to have received.
“I think we were trying to make an emphasis to get it inside, stop settling so much for outside shots, and be physical …the refs were calling today, so we were like, keep feeding it inside, driving it inside. And I think we did the exact same thing that we did last week and it worked for us.”
For UBC head coach Taylor, it’s simply what happens when an incoming fifth-year transfer (from UBC Okanagan) gets comfortable within a new roster chalked with veterans and learns how to bring the best part of her game to the fore when the opportunities present themselves.
“The big thing with her is just getting an aggressive mindset,” Taylor said afterwards. “You know, in control, but aggressive. And she’s done a good job of figuring out within the context of our team when to be aggressive.”
With another home game as the Canada West’s No. 1 seed, and then a trip to nationals, Ibbetson was clearly a player figuring it all out, allowing her defining skills to shine just as she did with her Kelowna Owls high school team and with her hometown Heat.
“I can’t do any of this without my teammates… they’ve been so amazing and I feel like we just play very well as a team,” said Ibbetson. “But yeah, I’m gonna keep driving to the rim. I feel like that suits my game better than shooting from the outside. So keep attacking.”
Jade Belmore scored a game-high 28 points for Regina, while Cara Misskey added 14.
2 THE VALUE OF JADE
Early foul trouble can knock all the rhythm out of a backcourt rotation and quick early fouls to UBC’s defensive dynamo Cerys Merton threatened to do just that.
Yet with fifth-year Sara Toneguzzi playing her usual brand of tough-nosed and cerebral hoops, third-year former Burnaby Central star Jade Huynh made a huge transition to main rotation minutes and did not disappoint.
The 5-foot-4 Huynh came into the game averaging 13 minutes per game off the bench, but played with poise throughout her 23:33 of floor time, very quickly knocking down baseline corner treys and finishing with eight points, three assists and no turnovers.
Doubling her floor time in the team’s biggest game of the season and demonstrating a seamless ability to bring her own brand of defensive smarts to the floors (two steals), Huynh’s play wound up being a pivotal part of a a true bench uprising that included 12 points (on the sweetest turnaround jumper in the conference) by fifth-year transfer forward Cassie Joli-Coeur, and eight more from super-versatile fourth-year Stella LaGrange.
“If you look at maybe some of the key players in that game, Jade gave us amazing minutes the first half,” agreed Taylor. “Cass was scoring a lot. And Jaeli gave us great minutes late, and Jaili’s the only one who occasionally starts (as she did Friday). Our bench outscored their bench 34-10. I don’t know what our differential is for the year, for our bench versus other teams benches, but it’s a lot. A lot. And that’s what I kept saying in the huddles, it was like, hey, we got to win this as a team, as a team, as a team.”
UBC’s bench outscored Alberta’s 29-14 last Sunday, thus has outscored two nationally-ranked teams who were a combined 32-8 this past regular season, by a post-season bench-points total of 63-24.
3 MINTING HER OWN HARD-COURT CURRENCY
What it a week it was for UBC’s top scorer Olivia Weekes.
The fifth-year guard was named Canada West Player of the Week, then made to the Canada West’s first-all-star team and on Friday punched another ticket to nationals.
And while she was by no means the only ‘Birds player to excel in the non-recorded departments of hustle plays like tipped balls that led to key to turnovers, she seemed to be in the midst of it all Friday.
Weekes scrapped and battled to 13 points, and although her field goal percentage took a bit of a hit, but she’d happily shrug that stuff off in the pursuit of a ‘W’.
“You know, this is what’s unappreciated about Olivia Weekes,” Taylor said afterwards, glancing at a box score to confirm what he already knew to be true. “She’s 5-for-16 (from the field), which doesn’t look good, until you look at her 14 rebounds. And then you go ‘Well, that’s a pretty big impact.’ And 36 minutes? And she’s plus-10. She had the highest plus-minus. That says it all.”
4 THE WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT UBC VS. REGINA
To get to his first national championship as UBC head coach, first-year ‘Birds boss Taylor was faced with the prospect of having to go through his old team at Regina, the one he spent the previous 32 seasons coaching including the last 19 as the head coach.
What was it like for him knowing not only his new team better than he has all season, but also knowing every nuance of the team he was facing?
With complete honesty, he delivered his answer in the post game.
“Honestly, I don’t think people really believe this, but this was just any other game for me,” he said. “You know, I’ve got a ton of respect for that team. I know their personnel, so, I mean, I knew how good they were. But I’m the UBC coach, and I want to beat whoever UBC’s playing. And as I said, I’ll cheer for Regina all the time, except when they play UBC. And this week, for me, was all about preparation for UBC. It’s a cool storyline for some people to write about. For me, it was a non-factor.”
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