The Ehs of March | Final 8(s) narratives | Unibball Dispatch, Year 2
Canada's university hoops championships go hard. An early primer on teams vying to cut down the nets in the U Sports nationals.
Canada’s strong take on March Madness, the twin Final 8 men’s and women’s tournaments next week in Vancouver, are stirring.
You choose your bombast for this; it’s not blasted at you out of the TV. Kilo for kilo, a Final 8 is the most riveting hoops played by student-athletes in North America. Winning three do-or-done games in one weekend takes talent and tough-mindedness, plus a good athletic therapy staff.
Plus, you have all these teams drawn from across the vastness of our country, in one space, with no cueing to have their elbows up. Taking in the immensity of our country means seeing it is a small miracle it happens at all. It hearkens to something national team mainstay Kim Smith Gaucher once said:
Canadians always have to do it the hard way.
Run toward that, especially if you have been following the news. I anticipate watching days of players finishing through contact and racking up floor burns amid the shorter 24-second shot clock turns it into a contest of athleticism, aggression, and managed attrition. If you know someone who still thinks basketball is soft, show them this tournament. Or a FIBA Olympic qualifier.
The echoes start to stir in February, scoreboard-checking to see who is shooting for the top of the conference standings, then the playoffs. I start poring over the indispensable usportshoops.ca by Martin Timmerman to refresh on lineups and team histories, piecing that together with sugar packets to get a rough idea of each team. I’m not an advance scout; just an advance narrator. Let me be your Ron Howard.
There is a vicarity with seeing a new team get a tournament ticket. The UPEI Panthers won the Atlantic men’s conference for the first time since 2003! The Bishop’s Gaiters teams did the Québec double for the first time since 1978. And, Queen’s once, Queen’s twice, Queen’s thrice, holy jump shots, the Gaels are in the men’s draw for the fourth consecutive season. Never thought I would see that.
Anything I say flows from appreciating the long arc of Canadian university hoops history. It’s not a scouting report.
I am also not here for pensées on the state of play as U Sports member schools contend with the NCAA’s name-image-likeness era. Go and see what Bill Burr said about the billionaires coming for college sports: are they going to move the University of Alabama to Memphis? In ways that I can’t quite express, I prefer the style of play; as the youngs say, it goes hard.
The game the Gaels won last Saturday was, in fact, an elbows-up affray from the tip. Queen’s and the Ontario Tech Ridgebacks practically played a re-creation of an early 1990s Big East game, and the howls from the packed gym boosted every bump and no harm-no foul closeout.
The Gaels pulled it out, 64-62, after lead guard Luka Syllas stuck an and-one putback with 8.1 seconds left, and Ontario Tech’s bid for a buzzer three was off-the-mark by a few inches. Do not look at what either team shot, whether you use traditional, effective, or true shooting percentage. Every bucket was an adrenalin shot or a gut punch through the laptop screen, with Queen’s just getting enough late sustain through Syllas and two triples from wing A.J. Cummings.
Since this strata of sport is outside most radars, some refreshing is needed. On each side, women’s and men’s, eight teams play a single-elimination tournament to decide the national champion. Three games in four days on the women’s side, 3-in-3 for the men, inside the elimination chamber (i.e., the basketball gym and the arena at UBC out in the Point Grey area of Vancouver). The NCAA teams with manifold bigger budgets are not asked to do that. Nor are there TV timeouts every four minutes.
Six teams qualify. The rest of the field consists of the host team and a wild card, with seeding finalized on the Sunday afternoon before the tournaments. The wild card is never controversial since everyone has internalized and synthesized the criteria for the wild card berth, eh?
The large Canada West and Ontario (OUA) conferences are two-berth leagues. Their semifinals, which were last weekend, are play-in games. The more compact Atlantic and Québec leagues are one-berth. The two-berth leagues have championship games this weekend. Out west, the No. 1-ranked Victoria Vikes has a second chance to qualify as they try to roll on, rather than reel, after losing national player-of-the-year Diego Maffia to a likely season-ending injury.
Six teams apiece are in so far:
Women: Bishop’s Gaiters, UBC Thunderbirds, Carleton Ravens, Ottawa Gee-Gees, Saint Mary’s Huskies, Saskatchewan Huskies
Men: Bishop’s Gaiters, UBC Thunderbirds, Calgary Dinos, Ottawa Gee-Gees, UPEI Panthers, Queen’s Gaels
As the answer to a Canadian university sports question no one asked made flesh and bone, duty beckons to scrawl about this form of b-ball late every winter.
Carleton’s dynastic powers have moved over to the two-time defending champion women’s basketball Ravens. They are on a 29-win streak.
Therein lies terrific opportunity to decode for the casuals — and mine for memes. An easy place to start is with some sick regionalism burns. There is no end of pride — and schadenfreude — that the Ontario conference reps all hail from eastern Ontario. There likely will not be a single entrant based within the 2,050-km span between Oshawa and Winnipeg. One hates to see that.
Oh, et bonjour, Laval. If you read this regularly 12 months ago, you will remember how the Laval Rouge et Or were a totes-legit men’s champion last season, winning as a host team after playing sub-.400 ball in the regular season. Winning a national championship surely propelled Laval to a new level… actually, they lapsed to a sub-.300 winning percentage and were one-and-done in the playoffs.
La balle ne repose pas.
Juxtapose even more, since UBC is joint-hosting both tournaments. Both UBC Thunderbirds teams earned an auto berth through the front door.
Starting with who is travelling the farthest, here is my look at the 12 teams in the dual dances. The women’s tourney starts March 13, the men on March 14.
Part 1: Easterners
Saint Mary’s Huskies (women, 6,160 km)
If you go hard for Maritimer toughness, root for these Huskies. Journeying across four time zones is a big ask upfront.
This is the last kick at the can for their six fifth-year vets, who include conference MVP Clara Gascoigne, fellow league all-star picks Lucina Beaumont and Ali Kobayashi; all three hail from down east. In non-conference play, Saint Mary’s beat some top-third competition from Ontario and the West.
Some recent history
Not that sibling athletes are competitive, but Gascoigne’s sister has a Final 8 medal. Josie Gascoigne was part of the bronze-winning 2016 Huskies. This SMU cohort came fourth two seasons ago; the last AUS medal was UPEI’s bronze in 2020.
Also, the school initials are said as an acronym: “Smoo,” not S-M-U.
UPEI Panthers (men, 5,703 km)
Paint the Panthers as the potential portrait of how the conference championship rates equally with the nationals. Whatever Final 8 fate awaits, UPEI and fifth-year guard Kamari Scott out-toughed St. Francis Xavier (aka St. FX) to end the team’s two-decade title drought.1 The revenge factor — St. FX torched UPEI by 50 points on the same stage two seasons ago, and Scott did not forget — was the main post-game angle down at court level at the still-the-Metro Centre.
You can read grit and good details off the stat sheet. Facing the conference defensive player of the year, 6-foot-9 Jeff Ngandu, the Panthers plucked so many offensive rebounds that they ended up taking 18 more shots and 10 more free throws than St. FX. Ngandu had five blocked shots, and yet UPEI hardly ever tried a three. The X-Men’s star guard, D.J. Jackson, got his, but Scott and UPEI’s other top two scorers put up 24, 20, and 18 and were charged, combined, with only two turnovers. They protected the ball like it was an egg.
Some recent history
Scott was fabulous two seasons ago when unheralded UPEI lost a one-point quarterfinal decision against No. 1 seed Victoria. Matching Maffia shot for shot, he had a true shooting percentage above 100 in that one (32 points on 9-of-15). Again, we’ll see how that game travels.
Due in part to lack of opportunity, UPEI hasn’t played in a nationals outside the Maritimes in a while. You have to go back to March 1984 for the last time they won a tournament game outside their home region. That was during the brief era of a 16-team, two-week tournament.
Bishop’s Gaiters (women, 5,070 km)
How do you pull off a 58-point swing in nine days against a good team while switching to their home floor? Saturday, on the road, all-Canadian forward Victoria Gauna and the Gaiters held Laval to 19 second-half points on 29 percent shooting to wrest away the team’s first conference title in 20 seasons.
Positions in the standings were settled when the same two teams met on Feb. 20 at Bishop’s to wrap up the regular season. One can’t say whether Laval got silly in rolling to a 101-49 win, or did anything out of flow to hit a hundred.
Somehow, Bishop’s flipped that around and held Laval to its second-lowest point tally all season when it mattered. And a Québec City native, guard Laurie Lafleur, flipped in the dagger three in the fourth quarter.
Some recent history
Two seasons ago, Bishop’s went 24-4 and missed the tournament. This season, under interim coach and national team alumna Andrea Torres, they make it after a 2-6 start out of the gate in the fall. Not too shabby. This is their first time in the women’s tourney since 2004.
Bishop’s Gaiters (men, 5,070 km)
Party like it is 1998?! Led by the likes of Étienne Gagnon, a rebound-ripping, post-scoring, bow tie-rocking forward, and a 6-foot-8 guard Charles Robert, Bishop’s broke out big-time this season. Where all too often the Québec league season is a five-way meat grinder — you mean a tourtière exercise? — Bishop’s became a complete wagon.
The Gaiters had their first overall winning record in 10 seasons, first 20-win campaign in 25 seasons, and won both playoff games by double digits. We’ll see how their game speaks so far from home. For now, exult in the Gaiters, repping a small school in the Eastern Townships, heading to the nationals. And they are 4-2 against OUA teams, including an October win against Ottawa.
Some recent history
Ten years ago, when coach McLean was a fifth-year big man, Bishop’s had Ottawa dead to rights in the late quarterfinal at the 2015 nationals. Bishop’s had the lead and the ball in the final seconds when a controversial travelling call granted Ottawa the last shot without having to foul. Of course, the Gee-Gees tied the game and won in overtime. That was as close as Bishop’s has been to a win in the championship bracket since their 1998 national title.
It’s not out of the realm that the Gee-Gees and Gaiters could be in the 1/8/4/5 side of the bracket.
Queen’s Gaels (men, 4,625 km)
Call this Luka Syllas’ last stand. The Gaels’ guard and coach Steph Barrie have conducted an exercise in habitual winning through collaboration, with Syllas often ceding alpha-scorer status to frosh Oliver Engen, a fellow Kingstonian. Four of the top five scorers from the 2024 national silver-medallist team moved on, and Queen’s still punched a Final 8 ticket. They scraped through the two playoff wins by a combined five points.
That’s nothing. The 2024 team’s last seven wins were by an average of 4.4 points, none by double digits.
Throw out one outlying outcome against an also-ran, and Queen’s is a .500 team with a negative point differential over the last six weeks. That will probably lead to a lower seed at nationals after being seeded 2, 5, and 5. They are never out of a close game, but they keep the enemy close, too. Do they not know this athletics supporter gets enough of that with the Minnesota Vikings?
Some recent history
Let’s cede the space for a tip of the cap to Ontario Tech and Zubair Sayed, their ever-wily graduating guard. Sayed was a capital-P Problem running point, raising the bar within a team relatively new to university-level competition. The 10th-seeded Ridgebacks won two playoff games on the road, and were one three-point shot away from earning a Final 8 berth. There were plenty of mistakes and missed opportunities, but there was no quit from the players under coach Deluxshan Pathmanathan. Hopefully for them, there is some carryover.
Part 2: The Capital crew
Ottawa Gee-Gees (4,371 km, men)
This might be old news, but it bears repeating how Gee-Gees leading scorer Jacques-Mélaine Guemeta found his way from Douala, Cameroon, into the garnet and grey.
As Radio-Canada’s Kim Vallière reported, Guemeta made his recruiting tape from his men’s league games when he initially posted up in Moncton after coming to study engineering in Canada. He’s the “only one” Ottawa has ever landed in that fashion, and damn that’s relatable for anyone who’s ever felt desperate for an opportunity.
Also, an actual nuts-and-bolts-ish hoops point! Ottawa went out to UBC’s tournament in October and played the Thunderbirds within single digits without the services of their playmaker guard, fifth-year vet Drajan Stajic. He is fit, presumably, boasts a 3:1 assist-to-turnover ratio for the third season in a row, and nearly had a triple-double on Valentine’s Day. Three other Ottawa core players have NCAA D1 experience, which the legacy media likes to latch onto since there are still some precincts where you cannot yet say someone is a superb basketball player in Canada.
Some recent history
Thanks, Captain Obvious, for noticing that Ottawa garnered Final 8 bronze two seasons in a row following a semifinal defeat against a team from their same area code — Queen’s in 2024 and Carleton in ’23. Recovery and resiliency are skills for life.
It will probably come up that Gee-Gees coach James Derouin has Vancouver ties — he was an assistant on a national silver-medallist UBC team, and hooped for Langara College.
Ottawa is a winner. For those who have the internet on home computers, this is their 14th time in the nationals in the last 20 seasons, with five medals. Of course, no national championship, and at least three origin stories about the Gee-Gees nickname. Why can’t they have three national championships and no origin stories?
Ottawa Gee-Gees (4,371 km, women)
Pace-setting guard Natsuki Szczokin and the No. 4-ranked Gee-Gees are 27-1 against outside-of-Ottawa teams. It is tempting to say they present an anyone-on-any-night arsenal since five players boast a 20-point game, but a check of their main competition shows that Carleton has six. So they both have that quality!
The question that hangs over any nationals with both the Gee-Gees and Ravens is whether they will be separated in the draw or put on course to meet in the semifinals. First, Ottawa and No. 1 Carleton play in the OUA championship game on Saturday; the Ravens have won 7 of 10 meetings since each team’s coach took over in 2021.
Some recent history
A group undertaking its first exposure to nationals will inevitably catch stray troll-thoughts. It’s the first trip for Ottawa under skipper Rose-Anne Joly, but there is bound to be strength in numbers when both of a school’s teams are making the trek.
The city rivals have never met at nationals on the championship side. In 2013, the last time both qualified, they met on the consolation side, and it was a one-point game. Catherine Traer Scrubb was Ottawa’s top scorer in that one; her husband and brother-in-law were winning a national title for Carleton that same weekend.
Carleton Ravens (4,370 km, women)
The dynasty has an earlier tip-off time these days. The Dani Sinclair-coached Ravens, pending their result against the Ottawas on Saturday, have gone 83-4 since New Year’s Day, 2023, going back-to-back as both OUA and national champions.
The experience piece is burnished since fifth-year guard Dorcas Buisa took the load as the distributor, and the Ravens have five scorers with double-digit averages, which is rare at this level. And the other Carleton trademark of not giving away possessions is there; case in point, Carleton out-rebounded Toronto Metropolitan under its own basket during their auto-berth win. Hard to be Bold when Jacqueline Urban is presumably in the right spot for the rebound and dropping double-doubles regularly.
Some recent history
This is the team to beat until someone beats them in a consequential game.
For the record, those four losses in the last 2½ seasons were against Ottawa twice in the regular season, and a pair of games during UPEI’s tournament in Charlottetown — Carleton’s first outing without point guard par excellence Kali Porcnic.
I will level: the men’s basketball Ravens winning did get old for some by the mid-2010s, contrary to what legacy media might have said over visuals of players cutting down the nets. The legacy media have to play nice, you know. In this case, it’s a two-in-a-row and three titles within the last seven seasons.
Part 3: Westerners
Saskatchewan Huskies (1,585 km, women)
The overall scoring summary for the Huskies dissolves into one imagined sequence: guard Gage Grassick comes up with a steal, outlets to start the transition, and runs up the floor to drop a three-ball. Or Logan Reider tries a trey; they both try about seven per game. Almost any opposing scorer who faces the Huskies is due for a bad time; they haven’t allowed more than 65 points in a game all season. Even Carleton allowed a handful of opponents to break 70.
Saskatchewan’s nine-deep rotation includes rookie Olivia Harm. That needs mentioning so the commentators can get in two “hoop and the Harm” puns by halftime of the Huskies’ quarterfinal game on March 13, and then never do it again.
Some recent history
Four of the last eight Lisa Thomaidis teams have played for the natty, and 16 of the Huskies coach’s last 19 teams have reached the tournament. And there is an apparent collision-course pact with Carleton. The Ravens won title tilts in 2018 and ’24, and Saskatchewan’s most recent title in 2020 was in Ottawa, when Carleton was the host team.
Calgary Dinos (974 km, men)
Is Calgary shifting into being a basketball-first athletics and recreation program? Perhaps, based on convenience samples. The Dinos have had a breakout season a year before hosting the 2026 Final 8; hometown all-Canadian guard Nate Petrone put up 20-plus a game for the second successive season; and they won the berth by winning at hitherto undefeated No. 1 Victoria. The football Dinos, not going to get tired of pointing this out, did their part for basketball-schoolness by missing the playoffs last fall. Every little bit counts.
Leading Dinos rebounder and shot-blocker Declan Peterson is 6-foot-11, so, uh-yeah, try to get him in early foul trouble. You are welcome.
Some recent history
This is Calgary’s first tournament trip since the COVID pause. They once made it five seasons in a row. You might sense a pattern in these bullet points:
2020: Lost quarterfinal against Carleton
2019: Lost final against Carleton
2018: WON IT ALL (someone else took care of Carleton)
2017: Lost quarterfinal against Carleton
2016: Lost final against Carleton
Well, Carleton is not in the men’s draw, so there is that.
Since Calgary has the host berth for next season, early congrats are due to Dinos coach Dan Vanhooren for joining the Final 8 coaches 10-timers club. The team’s first trip in the Vanhooren era was in 2004. Think of measuring that time by advances in phone technology.
Being in the 10-Timers club should come with a robe and plethoras of perks. Of course, budgets are tight at universities. Things are tough all over, man.
UBC Thunderbirds (0 km, women)
It is this Thunderbirds cohort’s first go-’round with nationals, and like a junior hockey team, they timed it up right with having the primary leaders be good at the same time they landed a super-rookie, Hamilton native Keira Daly. Their shortest UBC starter is five-foot-10. And they get to chill at home after games. Tall people are usually able to stretch out better in their home than in a hotel. Also, UBC has the tallest player in the women’s tournament, 6-foot-4 Jessica Clarke.
If the right does not get you, the left will is summed up by UBC’s leading scorer and rebounder, Mona Berlitz, who is ambidextrous — or beidhändig, in her native German. By the numbers, Berlitz does business in the lane, taking threes at barely a quarter of the rate of her teammates.
Saskatchewan has home court for the Canada West final on Friday. That is the first out-of-province game UBC has had since a season-opening road trip five months ago, and the scoreline will be a measuring stick for their potential at nationals. The Thunderbirds haven’t faced the Huskies since early in the ’23-24 season.
Some recent history
By gar, it has been a while since the Thunderbirds won three times in the aughts, capturing the Bronze Baby in 2004, ’06, and ’08. It has been a decade, or nine seasons, since UBC simply appeared in the Final 8. That seems far too long considering how popular basketball is in the British Columbia’s Lower Mainland. They will be in their space, which assures a home crowd and positive energy.
A Hamiton’s Great Ones note: Daly and her twin, reserve guard Nicole Daly, did not lose a game for three high school seasons with the Cathedral Gaels.2 They have only lost three games so far at UBC — and two were in overtime.
UBC Thunderbirds (0 km, men)
The Thunderbirds unlocked the front door by going to Winnipeg two weekends in a row to win playoff games against U of Winnipeg and Manitoba, so that’s as much stress-testing as a Final 8 host team with a long title drought gets. You do not even need to make the Winnipeg airport joke. It has been made.
The UBC starting five averages 6-foot-6, and there is length coiling in wait with 6-foot-10 Victor Radocaj playing out of a reserve role. A scan through recaps shows that they used their size to turn the tide, often through the likes of 6-5 wing Fareed Shittu, and 6-7 leading scorer Adam Olsen. Again, home court is going to be a big edge.
Of course, since this is UBC, and since devotees know their history, everyone is looking for the exhaust port in the schematic. And here it is, maybe: their 30.2 three-point percentage is the lowest of any of the six auto-berth winners. Sixth man Micah Jessie is the exception, swishing 39 percent from triple range.
Some recent history
A little reminder is needed that the ’Bird men have not won the national championship since Trudeau was in his first term — as in Pierre Elliott Trudeau. That was in March 1972, when Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was a 10-week-old baby rather than a G7 leader managing a 78-year-old toddler.
Groans all around.
— How long have you been waiting to use that?
— Since PMJT was in his second term, but UBC has not made it since 2020.
I lean more toward keeping the light on for a team to have their breakthrough eventually, rather than revelling in a team that keeps pushing boulders. It’s a resistance to shitposting culture. Do they think anyone associated with the Bills, the Vikings, the Detroit Lions, the Toronto Maple Leafs, is unaware of it?
On the bubble (men’s tournament)
The Manitoba Bisons trek to face the Victoria Vikes in a play-in game this weekend. At this stage, I will let it play out with who has the best case on paper to be the wild card. The committee picks the best ‘one win short’ team. The easiest scenario would be if Manitoba upsets Victoria, since then the Vikes would be an understandable pick with a 26-2 record. Their proximity to Vancouver is not a formal factor, but well, you know.
On the bubble (women’s tournament)
Similarly, Alberta hosts Fraser Valley in a play-in game. Laval is the highest ‘one win short’ team listed in the Timmerman combined ranking report.
So, I plan to write another post after the seedings are set on March 9 and do an end-of-day post after each day of play. This is my bliss and my cheap alternative to therapy. Hope you enjoy it.
Friendly reminder
I post about current affairs in Notes and on Bluesky (n8sager). Hopefully, this is enough for now. Please stay safe, and be kind.
March 1-5, 2025
Hamilton, Ont. : on the traditional territories of the Erie, Neutral, Huron-Wendat, Haudenosaunee, and Mississaugas.
Before Sunday, UPEI’s last conference title was in 2003. With the 2020-21 COVID-19 pause, that works out to a 20-season drought, or “first time in 22 years.” Math!
It’s a 16-minute walk from my home in Hamilton.