Bears to celebrate Horwood, fifth-years against the Dinos

Friday and Saturday’s matchups with the Calgary Dinos (16–4) will mark several conclusions for the Golden Bears basketball team (12–8)—not only will it be the final game of the team’s season leading into a postseason meeting with the Saskatchewan Huskies, but it will also signal the last regular season game for fifth-years Neb Aleksic and Justin VanLoo, as well as head coach Don Horwood.

While the focus of the media and the fans in attendance this weekend will likely be on the 26-year Bears bench boss on Saturday night, at this point, Horwood would prefer that the majority of the attention be redirected towards recognizing his two senior players.

“It hasn’t really crossed my mind at all,” Horwood admitted. “Saturday night is seniors night when Neb [Aleksic] and Justin [VanLoo] graduate and we’re honouring them as seniors. For me, it’ll be the last regular season game, but we have games next weekend against Saskatchewan—I don’t know when my last game will be and I haven’t spent any time thinking about it. I hope it’ll be in March in Ottawa, but it could even be as early as next weekend. We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”

Despite Horwood’s sentiments, however, it will be virtually impossible for the Bears coach to escape facing any sort of feeling that will naturally come about when a pregame ceremony to honour the three departing Bears is held prior to Saturday’s game.

According to Horwood, while he’s an emotional person both on and off the court, he believes he’ll be able to keep himself together while receiving honour from those around him.

“I’m emotional—you’ve seen me on the court; you’ve seen the way I talk to referees. I’m an emotional guy,” Horwood reiterated. “But I don’t think I’m going to have any of that. Who knows? Maybe I’m wrong; maybe I’ll be surprised. I don’t anticipate it—I see this as a job that I did and loved, but I don’t see it as more than that. I don’t see it as a legacy or leaving anything behind, but more as something that I’ve worked hard at, and I don’t see myself getting emotional. Maybe I’m wrong, though.”

The Dinos come into the weekend as the top team in Canada West and facing the prospect of a bye going into the playoffs. Having split with their southern rivals earlier in the year, Horwood believes their biggest challenge will come against one of Calgary’s top forwards.

“They played their second game without Henry Bekkering, who was out with a neck injury, and we beat them in that game. However, we haven’t beat them with Henry in the lineup, so are they beatable? We’ll see,” Horwood said. “They’re probably the biggest team in the country and we’re not—we’re probably one of the smallest teams in the country. So it’s going to be a big matchup problem for us. That being said, what I try to tell my guys all year long is that you have to battle for every possession because it makes a big difference.”

Tip-off between the Golden Bears and Dinos goes both Friday and Saturday at the Main Gym at 8pm.