CALGARY – On March 7, 2025, the University Calgary Dinos won its sixth Canada West men's basketball championship under head coach Dan Vanhooren and the ninth in program history.

On March 6-8, 2026, the Dinos will host the U SPORTS Final 8 for the first time since 1980.

While both will undoubtedly go down as milestone dates for the program, despite only being separated by one year, last year's championship team and the one battling for this year's hardware will look quite different for Dinos' fans.

Four of last year's starters are gone, as Nate Petrone, Noah Wharton and Dylan Lutes all graduated, while Declan Peterson transferred to the NCAA. 

"In a way, the world has changed," Vanhooren said of the university athletics landscape. "We've got kids who go pro earlier. We've got kids who are basically going to play pro in the NCAA, so they depart to get paid. I think we have to adapt what we do and how we prepare kids and how we're developing kids so that we're relevant in today's world."

All is far from lost for this year's Dinos team, though.

Aidan Smith, the lone returning starter from last year, is back for his fourth year on the court. The 6-foot-6 shooting guard is coming off a strong return to the court after suffering a season-ending injury in December of 2022 and missing the remained of that season and all of 2023-24 campaign, as well. Smith was impressive in his return, making 21 starts and playing in all 26 games while finishing fourth on last year's team with 251 points (9.7 per game).

While Smith's shooting ability will certainly once again be relied upon for this year's team, it's a pair of guards who have a combined three starts to their names who will be big leaders this season in Daniels Baumanis and Beckett Johnson.

"Daniels is definitely the number one in (taking that next step) at this point," Vanhooren said. "He's very talented. Lots of skills. 6-foot-3. Good athlete. He provides everything that we would want in a combo guard and now he's just transitioning into the point guard role. 

"Learning what he'll have to do at that position is more about leadership and guiding people and taking control of the game in certain aspects, comparatively to running the floor and just being a scorer. He's got other responsibilities now that he'll grow with, but he's definitely a big piece for us. 

"I think Beckett has also done a lot of work over the summer. He looks great. He's done a lot of good things for us in preseason."

While that trio certainly does plenty to shore up the backcourt for this year's team, what about the frontcourt?

That's where Vanhooren and the Dinos used the changing landscape and amount of transferring going on in their favour, bringing in a pair of veterans from NCAA schools.

Dre Francis is a 6-foot-7, 240-pound force coming to Calgary from Aquinas College. Meanwhile, Hayden Franson spent the past two years at Cornell University, helping the Big Red go 40-19 and just missing a berth to March Madness last year in a loss in the Ivy League Championship.

They both join Martynas Sabaliauskas, who returns for his fifth year after spending the summer playing for his home country of Lithuania in the FISU Summer World University Games. The 6-foot-8 forward has averaged 17 minutes per game each of the past two seasons and will bring plenty of experience this season.

Calgary also brought in a 6-foot-8 transfer guard in Eli Djordjevic. A native of White Rock, B.C., Djordjevic spent two seasons at Long Beach State in California. He played five games as a rookie before receiving a medical redshirt. Last year, he successfully returned to the court and made a pair of starts and 12 total appearances for the Beach.

"(They all bring) consistent size and length," Vanhooren said. "Deandre brings a great deal of experience on both ends of the floor. He can help us immediately. Hayden and Eli are going to need some time to find their feet and gain some balance on the floor and just figure out who they are as basketball players. They haven't had that opportunity yet at the university level."

The Dinos also added even more length in rookies Daniel Chijioke (6-foot-7) and Aleksandar Vukovic (6-foot-6), to go with an explosive play-making point guard in Mrigendra Dhaliwal (who also goes by Dennis) in this year's rookie class.

"Our youth is tremendous," Vanhooren said. "Dennis has to grow physically to be effective on the defensive side of the ball, but offensively, he's just going to be a juggernaut eventually. He's already had a 20-point game for us and as a young kid, he's seriously a force on the offensive end. We're thrilled with him.

"With Chijioke, he's 6-7 with a 7-foot wingspan. He's like a pterodactyl out there. He's talented. He's got lots of skill sets for his size. We're really excited about him, as well.

"Vukovic has lots of skills as a 6-6 guard. He's going to be very good. 

"We've got lots of players who are young and that are really going to produce for us in the future, as well. The combination of what we brought in is excellent. It's been one of our better recruiting classes. It's just a matter of patiently putting it together and not worrying about right now. We have to plan and be in the process and make sure that we're moving forward so that by the time we get near March, we're ready to go."

Speaking of March, this year will mark the 10th time Vanhooren has led the Dinos into the U SPORTS Final 8, but the first time going into the season he hasn't had to worry about how to get there – something he says is a welcome problem.

"It changes everything. We don't need to win a bunch of games in the preseason and have a crazy record where we're getting nationally ranked where we're in consideration for a wild card berth and that kind of stuff. We already have a berth. 

"Our whole job this year is to prepare for that tournament and those last three games, and that's what we're going to do. We've front filled our schedule. Everything non-conference is tough as nails. We haven't really played anybody who isn't in the top-10 in the country. So, we're pretty excited about taking our kite and sending it into the head wind, because that's the only way it's going to rise high enough."

Calgary opens the 2025-26 Canada West slate this Friday at Lethbridge. The first home game this season comes Nov. 14 when the Dinos host UFV.

-UC-