The Thompson Rivers University WolfPack men's basketball team will be facing its toughest opponent of the season to date this weekend.
The Pack will be entertaining the University of Saskatchewan Huskies in Canada West play. The teams will do battle at the Tournament Capital Centre Friday and Saturday (Nov 29-30).
Thompson Rivers enters the weekend in a three-way tie for second place in the Canada West with 12 records. The Pack are tied with both UBC and the University of Calgary Dinos. The Huskies are in a two way tie for fifth with the Manitoba Bisons at 5-1.
Saskatchewan enters this weekend's play-the final one before the Christmas break—rated seventh in the U SPORTS national top 10 rankings. That is down from fifth spot last week.
The Huskies are led by Kessler Bishop who is second in the Canada West in field goal percent (67.9) and fourth in rebounds per game (11.3). Bishop also leads Saskatchewan in blocks with 1.3 per game. JT Robinson leads the Huskies in scoring (18.3 points per game and is tied for second in steals with Noah Nickel with 1.3 steals per game. Nickel is the team leader in assists with four Fifth year Emmanuel Akintunde is second on the team in scoring (17.3 points per game) and is third in rebounds with six per game.
Statistically,
Joe Davis (5
th year, forward, Kamloops, BC) leads the WolfPack in scoring with 18.5 points per game and assists per game (3.3) and stands second in rebounds averaging 7.3 points per game.
Michael Rouault (5
th year, guard, Vernon, BC) leads the team in rebounds (8.8 per game average) and steals (1.5 per game) along with being second in assists (2.1 per game) and averages 12 points per game.
Anton Bilous (5
th year, guard, Cerkassy, Ukraine) is second in team scoring averaging 16.5 points per game. That is slightly ahead of Tyus DeVries (3
rd year guard, Chilliwack, BC) at 15 per game. Newcomer
Rojhae Colbert (3
rd year, forward, Phoenix, AZ) is third on the team in rebounding (6.5) and second in steals (1.1 per game).
This is the first time in six years that the Huskies have been to Kamloops. The two teams opened the 2013-14 Canada West regular season at the TCC on November 1,2013. Saskatchewan beat Thompson Rivers 98-95. TRU led 23-15 after the first quarter but were outscored 37-37 in the final period to suffer the setback. Thompson Rivers was led by future Canada West all-star Ta'Quan Zimmerman who made his Canada West debut by scoring 33 points. Josh Wolfram—who later represented Canada at the World University Games had 25 points. Saskatchewan was led by Stephon Lamar who had 33 points that night.
The teams played against each later than that. They met in the second round of the 2014-15 playoffs in Saskatoon. The Huskies won that series 2-1.
Tip off this weekend will be 5 pm PDT on Friday and 7 pm PDT on Saturday. The team's and the rest of the league take a break for Christmas and don't return to play until Friday, January 3
rd, 2020. The WolfPack will entertain the Mount Royal University Cougars at the TCC that night.
TRU will play a couple of exhibition games in California just before Christmas though.
Both of the games this weekend will be webcast on a pay-per-view basis on Canada West TV presented by Co-op by accessing:
https://cw.yaretv.com/.
James Matthews will handle the play by play duties of both games this weekend. His analyst will be former WolfPack guard Vince Watson .CFJC TV's Dylana Milobar will be the in game host.
COMMENTS OF WOLFPACK COACH SCOTT CLARK:
https://twitter.com/GoTRUWolfPack/status/1199912578463367168
COMMENTS OF WOLFPACK GUARD MICHEAL ROUAULT (5thYEAR, VERNON, BC):
https://twitter.com/GoTRUWolfPack/status/1199912240914169856
