VANCOUVER — If you asked the basketball gods to describe the perfect weekend of men’s university basketball in the province of British Columbia, they would tell you it’s beyond words.
But they’d also let you know that if you want to see it live and in-person, all you’ve got to do is head to UBC’s historic War Memorial Gymnasium this Friday (7:30 p.m.) and Saturday (6 p.m.).
That’s where the longest standing university hoops rivalry in provincial history resumes as the host Thunderbirds tip-off against the visiting Victoria Vikes.
The kicker to it all?
Victoria is ranked No. 1 nationally, UBC is ranked No. 2 and both teams are thus far undefeated on the young season.
Which got your faithful author thinking… hmm, when was the last time these two teams met, in whichever order, as the No. 1- and No. 2-ranked men’s teams in the nation?
The answer?
With huge thanks to the voluminous resource of Martin Timmerman’s usportshoops.ca website, we can tell you that No. 1 UBC faced No. 2 Victoria on the weekend of Jan. 18-19, 1991 in the provincial capital.
So miss this weekend’s games and maybe you’ll be forced to wait another 33 years, 10 months and three days?
Back in ’91, a Victoria team guided by the late Guy Vetrie wound up sweeping UBC on the historic hardwood of McKinnon Gymnasium, but not without some inspired performances from both sides.
The Vikings won the Friday evening clash by a slim 95-91 count in a battle royale of scoring stars as UVic’s Spencer McKay and UBC’s J.D. Jackson went head-to-head, each pouring home 40 points in the instant classic, and a game in which 25-year UBC head coach Kevin Hanson was serving his one-and-only season on the sidelines as a UBC assistant coach under then-head coach Bruce Enns.
The following evening, however, UBC found itself short-handed in the biggest possible way.
As veteran Vancouver Sun sports reporter Dan Stinson report, Jackson had hurt his ankle late in Friday’s game, and after re-injuring it in the first-half Saturday, managed just six points in 20 minutes before being pulled off the floor by Enns for the second half.
Victoria went on to win the second game 108-87.
McKay added another 22 points in the win, but on that night, the Vikes were led by its point guard Tom Johnson who hit six triples and dished seven assists as part of his game-high 39 points.
Derek Christiansen led UBC with 23 points while Al Lalonde added another 20 for the Thunderbirds
Jackson, meanwhile, did cap that season by winning the first of his back-to-back Mike Moser awards as the then-CIAU’s Most Outstanding Player
SPECIAL RIVALRY, SPECIAL NIGHT
From his home base in Penticton, a man who has spent time on both sides of the rivalry, remembers the precise feeling he had after that Friday opener back in 1991.
“That night that I scored 40, I couldn’t miss,” laughed McKay, who after leaving Victoria at season’s end as the program’s all-time leading scorer, would go on to spend five seasons (2013-14 to 2017-18) with the Thunderbirds as Hanson’s lead assistant.
“But to me, that game has disappeared. I have never seen it. I have been trying to find it, but I also heard a lot of it just got thrown away. Maybe CHEK TV has it?”
It’s a treasure waiting to be unearthed… a head-to-head clash between two of the best scorers the B.C. university game has produced at a time when each was ranked Nos. 1-2 in the nation. And to cap it off, at the of the regular season, Jackson and McKay stood as the two highest point getters in the country.
Indeed, if this Friday’s opener could provide a showcase of the same kind of shot-making skill that McKay and Jackson likely put on before a sell-out crowd of 2,800 fans, it may well be remembered as a classic in its own right.
Afterwards, Victoria’s Johnson drew the ire of ‘Birds head coach Enns, when he said to The Sun’s Stinson: “Our game plan was to throw everything we had at UBC offensively because we know they are capable of putting a lot of points on the board. We did that and what I think was quite evident was that we were in better shape than they were.”
When those remarks were passed along to Enns, the coach known as Bruiser fired back: “If he’s talking about fitness in terms of clutch-and-grab tactics and sheer survival, then he’s right. The fact is, the game here is played more physically here than anywhere else in the conference. You might as well put on football pads when you come here.”
For his part, McKay revealed the fact that for all the fire and brimstone they brought against each on the court, the early-1990s vintages ‘Birds and Vikes were actually on pretty good terms.
“The ironic thing is that we were all really good friends with the UBC guys,” remembers McKay of the fact that post-game gatherings between the two teams was not uncommon. “Back then, there were just three teams in B.C. with Simon Fraser in a different (NAIA) league. If you were a really good basketball player from B.C., then you usually went to one of those three places.
“So I grew up with J.D., and (with other UBC players of the era like) Mike Clarke… and Jason Leslie. We’re good friends to this day. Yeah, J.D., and Mike, and Jason Leslie named a son after me, well… he named him Spencer, so I’ll take credit for it. They were all buddies off the court, but on the court, it was a war.”
UBC had swept Victoria in a two-game series earlier that season at War Memorial Gym, and both teams went on to finish in a tie for first place at 15-5, with the Vikes finishing first on a tiebreaker.
UBC lost 81-73 to Acadia in the opening round of nationals in Halifax, while the Vikes made it to the semifinals before losing 87-77 to the eventual national champions, the Western Mustangs.
Over the 33 seasons which have since passed, the closest the two programs ever came to that dream No. 1 vs. No. 2 rivalry was back almost 18 years ago.
On Dec. 2, 2006, No. 2 UBC beat No. 3 Victoria 78-73. Both teams came into the game with 10-0 conference records, UBC led by the likes of Casey Archibald and Chris Dyck, and Victoria by Jacob Doerksen, Tyler Hass and Josh Whyte.
Weekends like the one on tap just don’t happen very often.
Here’s to hoping it won’t be another 12, 361 days between encores!
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