UFV Cascades B-ball get to play big schools more

Canada West has realigned the men’s and women’s university basketball teams, putting all of them in one conference starting in 2016.

This means that UFV will get more of a chance to play larger universities like UBC, which athletics director Steve Tuckwood is important for smaller institutions.

“The New York Yankees don’t need the Tampa Bay Rays, but the Tampa Bay Rays need the New York Yankees to come to town. So you need UBC to come here, we need UVIC to come here in order to really draw the fans that we want and have the good level of basketball that we want we need to play the best competition that we possibly can.”

The 2015-16 season will be played under the existing two-division format, with the 11-team Pioneer Division (Alberta, Brandon, UBC, Calgary, Lethbridge, Manitoba, Regina, Saskatchewan, Trinity Western, Victoria, Winnipeg), and six-team Explorer Division (University of the Fraser Valley, UBC Okanagan, MacEwan, Mount Royal, UNBC, Thompson Rivers), playing a 20-game regular season with no interlock between divisions.
Beginning in 2016-17, the UFV Cascades will play fellow B.C. teams Trinity Western, Thompson Rivers, UBC Okanagan and UNBC on an annual basis, while facing the rest of the Canada West squads in the regular season every second year.