CALGARY – An historic six-game homestand comes to an end this weekend as the Dinos basketball teams play host to the Regina Cougars to wrap up the Pack the Jack Six Pack.
As challenges go, they don't get much steeper than the Regina Cougars for the Dinos women, who continue to fight for their playoff lives with a 7-8 record. The Dinos are 1-3 in the homestand so far, but the one win came in dramatic fashion with a second-half comeback to take a 71-66 upset win over the UBC Thunderbirds last Saturday night. The win allowed the Dinos to keep pace with the Lethbridge Pronghorns in the playoff race and, with just five games left on the schedule, Calgary needs more of the same.
The Regina Cougars, however, are the No. 2-ranked team in the nation and come in with a sparkling 12-2 record, tops in the Prairie Division. CIS finalists last season, the Cougars have both the offensive and defensive credentials to warrant their spot near the pinnacle of the Top 10. Regina leads the conference in rebounding, averaging a whopping 17.3 offensive boards per game.
The weekend will pit two of the top four scorers in Canada West against each other as Calgary's
Ashley Hill meets Brittany Read of Regina. Hill and Read are numbers three and four in scoring, averaging 17 and 16.1 points per game, respectively. Read, a candidate for the conference MVP award, is the only player in the conference averaging a double-double on the year, hauling down 10.1 rebounds per game in addition to her high scoring totals. As six-foot-three, she will present significant match-up challenges for the Dinos down low.
Hill was almost singlehandedly responsible for Calgary's upset of UBC last Saturday, going 7-for-11 from three-point land and leading the comeback charge in the third quarter. She will need to be at her best again and get help from the supporting cast if the Dinos are to have a chance against the Cougars.
The two-game series is a possible first round playoff preview. The new Canada West division structure calls for the top four teams on each side to make the playoffs with crossover quarterfinal series where the first-place team in one division will host the fourth-place team in the other, etc. However, because the Prairie division has more teams than the Pacific, a wildcard spot exists for the fourth seed in the Pacific Division so that the fifth-place team on the Prairie side can make the playoffs if they have a better record than the fourth-place Pacific team. The wildcard will likely be a Prairie team and could very well be the Dinos, which would set up a first-round playoff series against the Cougars.
The Dinos will hold 50/50 draws at all four basketball games on the weekend, with the proceeds going to the Jenny Vincent Endowment for Women's Rugby in honour of Jenny Vincent, the head coach of the Dinos rugby team, who passed away on Sunday, Jan. 24.
-UC-
