After making school history with a medal finish in the Canada West men’s basketball playoffs, how will the UNBC Timberwolves top that?
They won’t, not if the pre-season coaches’ poll proves anywhere close to being accurate by the end of the season. It ranks the TWolves 16 out of 17 teams in the league.
But that’s OK with Todd Jordan and his gang of overachievers. The Twolves don’t mind one bit being underdogs again, just like they were last year in the playoffs when they won three of four games.
Ranked 12th after a 9-11 season, they got hot at the right time and pulled off shocking upsets over UBC, Manitoba and Calgary and returned from Winnipeg sporting bronze medals. The went on an 11-0 run in the fourth quarter and beat the second-ranked Calgary Dinos 94-80 to become the first UNBC team ever to win Canada West hardware since joining the league in 2012.
“It’s exciting what we did last year and you hope the returning guys take that experience and it makes them better, but we still have to do all that work,” said TWolves head coach Todd Jordan, back for 15th season at the helm. “We’re a very different team this year with all the young pieces coming in and we’ll have to go through that same process again of learning how to compete together.”
Starters Spencer Ledoux and Chris Ross have graduated, and that puts the onus on the T-wolves’ skyscrapers – third-year Evgeny Baukin ( six-foot-seven), fourth-year Josh Gillespie (six-foot-five) and sophomore Will Keyes (six-foot-11) to generate the lion’s share of points from in close.
The Russian-born Baukin, a Duchess Park graduate, finished second in team scoring last season, averaging 13.2 points. He’s a tenacious defender who keeps getting stronger on his feet and he Josh Gillespie, a versatile shooter and effective rebounder from Idaho, both showed their ability to shred Canada West defences with their quick ball movement and finishing touches.
Point guard Justin Sunga emerged as a bona fide star in his second season coming up from Burnaby. He averaged 5.3 assists, third in all of Canada West and the TWolves’ fortunes will depend on him getting the ball to his teammates.
“Last year, our success heavily depended on good ball movement and multiple guys contributing which made us difficult to guard when we were at our best,” said Jordan. ”We will be looking to follow the same formula this season, and our incoming players’ ability to contribute meaningfully in that system will have a large impact on our ability to make playoffs and be dangerous come the end of the year.
“Evgeny’s been our best guy in the preseason and those three guys are going to have to carry the load. Losing Spencer is a big hit and we’re going to have to find other ways to score and our young kids are going to have to step up. Will Keyes is going to have a big role for us this year and finding one or two young guys as the year goes on to fall into bigger role will be important.”
Chris Ainsley knows the ropes as a returning guard looking for starting minutes at guard. Spaniard Danilo Gonzales could be one of the new guys able to step up his game. Ben White, a young recruit from McMath Secondary in Richmond showed some promise in the preseason, as did New Brunswick native Marcus Wilson.
Sunga has been nursing a shoulder injury and missed the first six preseason games in Toronto, Edmonton. He was in the lineup but still wasn’t totally healthy last weekend in Winnipeg to face the Wesmen and Manitoba Bisons.
UNBC went 0-8 in the preseason. Not much different from their 1-7 preseason record in 2023.
Jordan will be getting some coaching help from Illya Zhukovskyy, a 10-year basketball pro from Ukraine, who joins UNBC alongside his former Ukrainain teammate, TWolves assistant coach Vova Pluzhnikov.
The T-wolves will be on the court in Kamloops Friday night to open the season against the Thompson Rivers University WolfPack, then will be back on their home court at the Northern Sport Centre Sunday afternoon (4 p.m. start) to take on the UBC-Okanagan Heat.
The tailgate party starts at 1 p.m., just before the women’s game at 2.
