Miguel AranasAfter hitting a bump in the road, the Pandas basketball team appears to have gotten themselves back on track with back-to-back dominant wins over the Brandon Bobcats.
The Pandas suffered their first weekend sweep of the season a couple weeks ago, when they came home empty handed after traveling to Regina to take on the Cougars. The losses knocked the Pandas out of first place in the Pioneer Division, meaning they had to win their final five games of the season in order to have a chance of finishing back at the top of the standings.
Head coach Scott Edwards said the series against Brandon last weekend gave his team an excellent opportunity to get themselves back on track.
“I thought that our athletes and our team performed really well last weekend,” he said. “We had a really good week of practice, we battled hard and competed, and it got us into a really good frame of mind which allowed us to have a really nice weekend of games.
“We executed the way we wanted to offensively. Obviously we scored a lot of points, but more importantly I think we got back to our fundamentals on defence.”
Scoring a lot of points was certainly an understatement. The Pandas exploded for 174 points over the weekend and also managed to keep the Bobcats to just 104. On Friday, the Pandas opened up the weekend with an 83-47 win in which they shot 55.8 per cent from the floor and 79.2 per cent from the charity line. The Pandas also dominated in the pain, out rebounding the Bobcats by a whopping 48-25. It was more of the same on Saturday, when the Pandas sent the Bobcats packing after a 91-57 victory.
With the wins, the Pandas’ record improved to 13-4, good for third in the Pioneer Division with three games remaining. The Saskatchewan Huskies and UBC Thunderbirds are tied for first in the division with 13-3 records, while the Regina Cougars are hot on the Pandas’ tail with a 12-4 record.
Although they’re right in the thick of things, Edwards said he thinks his team’s chances of finishing first are fairly slim.
“It was in our hands leading up to that Regina series and now we have to rely on other teams to help us out a little bit,” he said. “We just want to win as many games as we can to give us the best position possible.”
The Pandas’ final three games of the season will come against the Calgary Dinos and Lethbridge Pronghorns, two teams who are well below them in the standings. While they haven’t faced the Pronghorns yet this season, the Pandas dominated the Dinos in their lone match-up back on Dec. 5, earning a 65-33 victory. The 33 points scored by Calgary was by far the team’s lowest of the season.
The Pandas’ lone game this week will be played at the University of Calgary on Thursday, Feb. 5.
While it’s unusual to play on a Thursday, Edwards said he doesn’t think it’ll affect his team’s play or preparation.
“I think it’s a little different, but we did it once in the first term where they came up here and played us on a Friday night,” he said. “I don’t think it’ll be too big of a deal since we’ll have our full week of practice like we always do and we have some rest since we weren’t traveling on Sunday.
“We should be rested and ready to go on Monday for three solid days of practice, then we’ll head down to Calgary on Thursday.”
The Bears basketball team will also head to Calgary on Thursday for a one and done with the Dinos. After a difficult first half that saw them head into Christmas with a 4-5 record, the Bears have gone 7-1 in the second half, moving them up to fourth in the Pioneer Division.
