The SFU men’s basketball team lost the first Buchanan Cup held in five years by a score of 101–71 last Tuesday in front of 823 fans in UBC’s War Memorial Gym.
The Buchanan Cup was once an annual game between the SFU and UBC men’s basketball teams; prior to SFU joining the NCAA, it was only missed several times during a period between 1972 and 1978, and twice between 1998 and 2000. UBC leads the series with 18 wins to SFU’s 15, while the two teams split the 1981 edition as it was played as a two-game affair. UBC won the last two games, held in the 2008–09 and 2009–10 seasons.
SFU jumped out with an early lead as second year guard JJ Pankratz put the first three points of the game on the scoreboard. This, however, would end up SFU’s only lead in the game, as UBC quickly responded with a three-pointer of their own.
“We need to work on playing at tempo; we don’t play at pace yet. UBC plays at a pace that we can’t emulate in practice, so playing a game is feedback for us to go, ‘Now we know we need to play at a faster pace,’ because we’re going to see opponents like that, if not better — that’s the takeaway,” said first year Head Coach Virgil Hill, whose first game was a 74–56 exhibition loss to Thompson Rivers University on October 24.
Despite this, SFU played a competitive first quarter. The game was played under CIS, rather than NCAA rules, therefore split into 10 minute quarters instead of 20 minute halves. SFU trailed by only five points at the end of the quarter, with a score of 29–24.
The second quarter initially appeared to be more of the same, with SFU nearly tying the Thunderbirds. However, in the last five minutes, UBC took over the game going on an 18–1 run, giving them a dominant 54–35 lead.
“UBC’s a good team. We played with them for about 15 minutes, and then that last five minutes of the first half, they ended the half on an 18–1 run and we just couldn’t respond,” said Hill. “We’re in there, kind of like a fighter, back and forth, back and forth, and then at that point the knockout punch happened.”
From then on, UBC proved too much for the young Clan team. A Jordan put on a show for the Thunderbirds — guard Jordan Jensen-Whyte led scoring for both teams with 22 points. In the end, UBC won the third quarter 28–16.
SFU won the fourth quarter by score of 20–19, but the one-point victory was clearly not enough to overcome a 30 point deficit. Pankratz led SFU in scoring with 21 points. Max Barkeley, a junior guard transfer from Victor Valley College playing his first season for the Clan, put up an impressive showing with 14 points and an in-your-face attitude across the court. However, he was also called for five personal fouls which led to his ejection from the game.
Patrick Simon, who played last year for the Clan but transferred to UBC in the offseason, managed 10 points for the Thunderbirds.
SFU plays next Saturday, November 14 against Central Washington University at home in the West Gym at 1 p.m.
