T-Birds storm back to stun Wesmen

WINNIPEG — The UBC Thunderbirds stormed back and earned their way into the U Sports national championship with a 92-89 win over the Winnipeg Wesmen in a Canada West conference men's basketball semifinal Saturday night at the Duckworth Centre. 

The Thunderbirds earned one of Canada West's two auto berths into nationals and will face the Victoria Vikes in the championship next weekend.

UBC, the tournament's 3-seed, rallied from as many as 16 down in the first half and chipped away until they got their breakthrough in the fourth quarter. 

Holt Tomie and Raj Dhadda hit back-to-back threes to tie the game at 80 with 45 seconds to go in regulation. 

They then built a seven-point lead with a 10-3 start to overtime. Winnipeg got it down to 90-89 with 44 seconds left and, after a Nylan Roberts layup in the dying seconds pushed the UBC lead back to three, Jaro had a look at a game-tying triple that hit back iron as the buzzer sounded. 

"It took everything we had, so credit to Winnipeg they're a really good veteran squad," UBC head coach Phil Jalalalpoor said. "I'm really proud of our guys, we kind of chipped away and kept believing."

Dhadda led five TBirds in double figures with 17 points. Tome and Gus Goerzen both scored 14, Nikola Guzina added 13 and a game-high 13 rebounds, and Eduoard Gauthier chipped in 10.

The Wesmen got a game-high 21 points and 12 rebounds to lead the Wesmen, who had six players in double figures. Kato Jaro scored 19, with eight rebounds and six assists, Elijah Mensah scored 12 off the bench and Donald Stewart, Emmanuel Ugbah and Malachi Alexander each had 10.  

"They made some big plays at big times, and we had opportunities to close some possessions that we didn't and they capitalized, so give them all the credit," Wesmen head coach Mike Raimbault said. 

"I think if you score 89 points it's gotta be enough to win a playoff game. Obviously, we'd like to have a couple more shots or make a couple more plays … but, really, if you look and you're on your home floor and you score 89 you've gotta find a way to win that game."