Bobcats look to establish paint presence

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This article was published 04/01/2023 (674 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Noah Garcia had a feeling she wasn’t in Madrid anymore.

The sensation came courtesy of a swift Saskatchewan Huskies elbow to her nose in her first weekend of Canada West women’s basketball. If that wasn’t a clear sign of the physicality to come, the lack of a foul call to follow did the trick.

The Spanish import quickly realized there was no place for finesse under a U Sports basketball hoop like there is back home. Now in her second year with the Brandon University Bobcats (0-10), teammate Eden Tabin can attest that she’s adjusted.

“She’s getting a lot tougher and you can feel it after practice, absolutely. All over (my upper body) is all bruises … I would much prefer that than a marshmallow on the inside.” Tabin said ahead of Brandon’s home game against the UBC Thunderbirds (5-3), which tips off at the Healthy Living Centre tonight at 6 o’clock. “… She’s just a little more confident in her abilities now. She knows what she can do, she’s not timid and now that she gets to post up a little bit more, she’s super excited for that inside game.”

Garcia’s up to 4.5 points per game this season, from 2.6 in her rookie year. Tabin’s chipping in 2.8 ppg as all of BU’s bigs account for about 10 ppg combined. While that number is low, it’s depressed by Brandon scoring a league-low 50.5 ppg while more than 60 per cent of it comes from guards Piper Ingalls (12.8), Chelsea Misskey (10.1) and Reetta Tulkki (8.1).

That’s going to change if coach James Bambury’s second-semester plans come to fruition.

“We’re going inside more this semester,” Bambury said. “… Starting to get the ball inside, whether it’s off the drive or off the pass and really maximizing our opportunities at the rim is going to be the deciding factor on how successful we are.”

Bambury’s offensive philosophy since before arriving in Brandon in 2021 is that all shots should be from in the key, outside the three-point line or from the foul line — or, “key, free and three.”

It’s working, to some degree. Synergy, the program U Sports teams use for game film and advanced analytics has BU .01 behind the Canada West-leading Regina Cougars in shot quality. The metric essentially looks at the location shots come from and how open the shooter is and calculates how successful the league’s average player would be in that position.

While the Bobcats live in the basement of most statistical categories — and one could rightfully question the weight of a statistic that suggests an 0-10 team is good — it’s a sign of promise for Brandon’s offensive system. It’s getting the shots it wants and simply needs to knock them down.

Hell, the Bobcats could have snapped their losing skid against the 7-1 Winnipeg Wesmen in their last game of the semester with better shooting in a few short stretches.

“Coming out and making shots is always important for us. We talk about it every week, the confidence we gain from seeing the ball go through,” Bambury said.

“That Winnipeg game looks completely different if we make the five open layups at the beginning of the game we got and missed.”

Tabin said the focus has been getting two posts to work off of each other and get the inside game going to free shooters up even more on the perimeter, like establishing a run game in football to draw defenders in and open up the deep ball.

“It’s best to be dangerous on both sides of it,” Tabin said. “I know I’ve got great shooters under me so if we get the ball inside and they … know I’m a threat, they’ll come inside and I can pass it back out. Three points are better than two.”

The Bobcats came back a few days after Christmas and jumped into a week of two-a-day practices. While the men finished third in the Wesmen Classic with seven players to start the week and nine by the end, and the volleyball teams played exhibition tournaments outside the province, Bambury felt it best to go through six days of hard conditioning instead.

“It gave me flashbacks to summer,” Garcia said with a laugh. “The first two days you get sore, you get going, then it’s pretty good. You get in shape pretty quick.”

“I feel like it was needed,” Tabin added. “I’m very happy we did it because Now I have my legs under me again. I remember how to shoot the ball, I remember how to think through pressure.

“One thing is I always tend to lose my mind first whenever I go on a break, so remembering plays, remembering where I’m supposed to be, so I’m happy we ran through stuff at game speed.”

Bambury expects an aggressive, uptempo game from UBC. While it’s his first time playing the Thunderbirds with Brandon, he’s familiar with his adversary. Coach Erin McAleenan, who replaced longtime bench boss Deb Huband in 2021, spent five years as head coach at York and competed against Bambury’s Queen’s Gaels in Ontario University Athletics.

Five-foot-11 Winnipeg native Olivia Weekes leads the team with 18.3 ppg. She’s on the smaller end of a T-Birds roster loaded with forwards over six-foot.

So rebounding, another thing Brandon struggles mightily with, will be critical.

The semester doesn’t start easy, but overall it’s much more forgiving than playing the top three teams in the conference and all five being .500 or better.

After this weekend, BU’s four remaining opponents have just 10 combined wins.

“I’m not really worried what people have to think about it. Even when we’ve finished games … I’ve had people come up and say this is a different look of Brandon basketball,” Tabin said.

“… It’s a different way of seeing it. We did have a very hard draw first semester but I’m just excited for what’s coming now.”

MEN FACE TOUGH

STRETCH OF TESTS

The 7-3 Bobcat men face a 4-4 Thunderbirds side that split each of its four weekends last term.

James Woods (22.6 ppg) leads an offence averaging more than 10 ppg fewer than Brandon (92.7-82.3). They both give up about 85 ppg, so another shootout at the HLC could be in the cards tonight at 8 o’clock, and again on Saturday at 7 p.m., following the women’s game at 5 p.m.

BU beat Laval 73-68 and lost to Winnipeg 79-74 before dropping Regina 96-76 at the Wesmen Classic last week as the guys regained their shooting touch after a few weeks away.

VOLLEYBALL

SQUADS ON ROAD

The BU volleyball teams went straight to Kelowna, B.C., from their late December exhibition tournaments. The men (6-6) reached the final of a tournament in California while the women (0-12) lost to Laval, Regina and Calgary in Edmonton.

They take on UBC Okanagan, which is 6-6 on the women’s side and 4-8 in the men’s standings.

The next home volleyball action is Jan. 20-21 against Calgary.

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