MBB: Semifinal Preview

Article by Brian Swane, special to CW

Feb. 28, 2025 - After the opening two rounds of the Canada West men’s basketball playoffs, just four teams remain in the quest for the Stan Broder Trophy.

Semifinal action will see the Victoria Vikes battle the Calgary Dinos on Friday, while the Manitoba Bisons tangle with the UBC Thunderbirds on Saturday.

This is a quartet of the highest calibre, certainly one of the best in recent Canada West history. Consider that all four teams appear within the first seven spots in the latest U Sports Top 10 national rankings. Or that the four teams have combined for just 13 losses this season – and seven of them came against each other.

The winners of each semifinal will meet next week in the championship game.

Catch all the action on Canada West TV - Presented by BioSteel.

No. 1 Victoria Vikes (20-0 regular season, 1-0 playoffs) vs. No. 4 Calgary Dinos (15-5 regular season, 1-0 playoffs)

Friday, Feb. 28, 7 p.m. PST at CARSA Performance Gym in Victoria, B.C.

Victoria is just two wins away from winning its fourth straight Canada West men’s basketball title. The Vikes already have the second longest championship streak in conference history, behind only Victoria’s seven-year reign from 1978 to 1984.

Under the guidance of first-year head coach Murphy Burnatowski, Victoria has literally been unbeatable. The Vikes was victorious in all 20 of their regular season games, then defeated UFV 106-84 in last Saturday’s quarterfinal round. Going back to January 2024, Victoria has won an incredible 33 straight Canada West regular season and playoff contests.

One team that Victoria has not faced during that streak is the Dinos. In fact, Calgary was the last team to defeat the Vikes on their home court, way back on Nov. 4, 2023. Since then, Victoria is 19-0 at CARSA Performance Gym.

Calgary closed out the regular season with eight wins in its last nine games, before beating Trinity Western 98-84 in a quarter-final game at Jack Simpson Gym last Saturday. The Dinos went 8-2 on the road in 2024-25.

Expect lots of points to be scored Friday. Calgary ranked first in scoring during the Canada West regular season with 91.7 points per game, just ahead of the Vikes, who were second at 89.5 points per game.

Coach Dan Vanhooren’s Dinos are powered by fourth-year guard Nate Petrone. The 2024 All-Canadian led Canada West with 24.2 points per game and ranked third with 5.0 assists per game during the regular season.

Despite losing Diego Maffia, the 2024 U Sports Player of the Year, to injury in January, the Vikes have continued to stack Ws thanks to their incredible depth. Case in point, the win over UFV last week, in which six Victoria players scored at least 13 points.

No. 2 Manitoba Bisons (16-4 regular season, 1-0 playoffs) vs. No. 3 UBC Thunderbirds (15-5 regular season, 1-0 playoffs)

Saturday, March 1, 7 p.m. CST at Investors Group Athletic Centre in Winnipeg, Man.

Two teams that stared elimination in the face and lived to tell about it will meet in what promises to be a tremendous semi-final at the University of Manitoba’s Fort Garry campus.

In the quarterfinals last Saturday, the host Bisons trailed Thompson Rivers late in the fourth quarter, before ending the game on a 14-6 run to eek out a 70-67 win. Meanwhile, in Vancouver, UBC fell behind Winnipeg by seven early, and even after taking the lead, could never quite pull away from the Wesmen, eventually holding on for a 74-72 victory.

It’s fitting that both went through similar experiences in the quarterfinals, because Manitoba and UBC were neck-and-neck in the standings all season. They even had identical records over the last seven games, each losing twice before reeling off five straight wins to close out their respective schedules.

When the dust settled, Manitoba finished just ahead of the T-Birds, giving the Bisons home court advantage for this game, but will that be a factor? Ironically, during the regular season, Manitoba and UBC both had higher winning percentages on the road than at home.

Making this game even harder to predict is the fact that the Bisons and T-Birds haven’t played each other since the 2023-24 season, when UBC won a pair of close games in Vancouver. ​ It’s also a match-up of strength vs. strength: UBC was the third highest-scoring team in Canada West in 2024-25, averaging 87 points per game, while Manitoba ranked second in fewest points against, allowing just 70 per game.

Players to watch include UBC’s Fareed Shittu, who had a monster performance against Winnipeg, scoring 28 points and grabbing 14 rebounds, and Manitoba guard Mason Kraus, the sixth-leading scorer in Canada West this season at 18.4 points per game.

Manitoba is seeking its first ever Canada West title, while UBC is the most recent team besides Victoria to capture the conference championship, in 2019-20.