CALGARY - The Dinos men's basketball team has seen a promising season move quickly downhill with a plethora of injuries to key players as they limp into the weekend with a 2-4 record and two tough tests against the No. 6 Victoria Vikes and the No. 4 UBC Thunderbirds.

Tip-off is 8 p.m. MT both nights and the games can be seen live on CanadaWest.tv.

Transfer Boris Bakovic was the first casualty, sustaining a knee injury during the training camp for the Pan American Games with Team Canada. That was followed by an illness to Canada West rookie of the year Matt Letkeman which has kept him out of the line-up for the last two weeks, along with a hand injury to point guard Jarred Ogungbemi-Jackson, who sat out the entire 2010-11 season with injury as well. The sick bay is filling up for Dan Vanhooren.

The Dinos come into the weekend after a pair of losses at Regina. During both games, Calgary built up big first-half leads only to see them slip away in the second half, and Saturday night's 93-91 loss in double overtime was a particularly bitter pill to swallow. After holding leads late in regulation and both overtime periods, the Dinos lost on a steal and lay-up with less than 10 seconds remaining – after playing the entire second OT with just six players after three of their nine dressed had fouled out.

For a team with so much promise early in the season, the Dinos face their historic rivals from Victoria and UBC this weekend needing to keep as close to the leaders as possible heading into the Christmas break, after which they'll hopefully get some players back in the line-up for the stretch drive that begins in earnest in January.

With Ogungbemi-Jackson's 16 points per game no longer available, fifth-year forward Tyler Fidler has been the team's offensive leader with 14.2 points per game, joined in the double digits by Josh Wolfram (12.8), who has stepped up and put in big minutes for the Dinos in his second season with the program. Keenan Milburn had a career-high 27 points in the 2OT loss at Regina – and the Dinos will need big nights from all three of those players against the high-powered B.C. schools they face this weekend.

The Thunderbirds (99.5) and Vikes (85.3) are the No. 1 and No. 3 scoring teams in the conference, respectively, early in the 2011-12 season. They're both deadly from long range, they're the top two rebounding teams in Canada West, and each has a top-five scorer in Victoria's Ryan Mackinnon (No. 3, 22.2 points/game) and UBC's Nathan Yu (No. 4, 21.0 points/game). Yu also leads the conference in assists.

Both Victoria and UBC are undefeated coming into the weekend, with the Vikes at 6-0 and UBC at 4-0. Both scored two big wins over divisional opponent Trinity Western and had little trouble with Regina and Brandon – teams the Dinos are a combined 1-3 against so far this season.

It's the first road trip of the season for the Thunderbirds, who open the weekend Friday night in Lethbridge before heading back to Calgary Saturday. Lethbridge is Victoria's opponent Saturday night.

The Dinos are headed back to California for a three-game trip in late December, and open the second half of the regular season Jan. 6-7 on the road at Fraser Valley and Trinity Western. Calgary returns to the Jack Jan. 13-14 to face the Saskatchewan Huskies.

-UC-