Women’s basketball down to six players

Have you ever wanted to play basketball for the SFU Clan? Well, now may be your chance. The women’s basketball team is going through an injury crisis the likes of which Head Coach Bruce Langford has never seen. The team is so desperate for players that they’re looking to the student body to fill the gap for the injured players. No matter what position you play, you will be welcomed to the team with open arms.

“Well, when you only have six or seven bodies you can’t afford to be too choosy,” explained Langford to The Peak. “If a person can play, if a person can shoot, if a person has a basketball IQ, [we’re looking for them].

“Everybody likes bigger or faster, but right now we’re in a position where [. . .] we need to find somebody who can sort of be the finger in the dam for the rest of this year to help us get through it.”

This all started over the team’s road trip, where, though the team won some games, they lost some players along the way.

“We had a good weekend in California where we won two games and lost one. And then we had a couple of injuries. Meg Wilson, who everyone would agree is probably one of our best players, is out for the rest of the year with compartment syndrome. [She will be] getting an operation in December, we hope.

“Then we lost Sophie Swant to a concussion, and we lost Sam Beauchamp to a knee injury that we’re not certain yet what that’s going to get diagnosed as. So we’re crossing our fingers. We’re down to six players which is a bit of a challenge for a season, so we’ll see.”

However, one former player has already stepped up to help the team during this unprecedented injury crisis.

“One of our [former] players who played a year and a half and then became our trainer for the last couple of years, Rachel Halipchuk, we’re going to add her to the roster for the rest of the year. She knows what we do, she knows what we run, she’s athletic, she shoots the three a bit, so we’re excited to add another body.”

The NCAA has some strict rules regarding who is eligible to play. Players must have had 24 credits per year in each of the years that they have attended school, and taken at least 12 credits in their last full-time semester. For example, a third-year player has to have taken at least 24 credits every year previous to be NCAA eligible. “There’s just like nine pieces of the puzzle that need to be right in order to be certain they would be eligible. It’s a challenge.”

If you can ball, give Head Coach Bruce Langford a call at 604-614-4667, or email him at langford@sfu.ca.