Tight defence and timely shooting powered the University of the Fraser Valley men’s basketball team to an 82-59 victory over the UNBC Timberwolves in their regular season home opener on Friday evening.
The Cascades held the T-Wolves to 36.8 per cent shooting from the field, while shooting 47.1 per cent themselves.
The hosts led 40-29 at the half, and expanded the lead after the break thanks to some red-hot shooting from Manny Dulay. The third-year point guard scored all 17 of his points in the second half, and went 5-for-7 from three-point range.
Manny Dulay
“Manny was terrific,” Cascades head coach Adam Friesen said. “I don’t expect him to get as many open looks tomorrow. But he’s worked at his game, and showed his ability to finish inside with some layups and runners. He’s a tough guy to stop. Everybody knows he can shoot it, but he becomes a difficult check now that he puts the ball on the ground and can go by somebody.”
UFV’s post players also thrived on Friday – Nate Brown registered a team-high 18 points, while Jasper Moedt racked up 15 points and 14 rebounds and Kadeem Willis notched 11 points and seven boards. The Cascades won the rebounding battle by a 41-31 margin.
Michael Smith was the only UNBC player to score in double figures – he tallied 13 points on 5-for-12 shooting from the field. Franco Kouagnia, the T-Wolves’ fifth-year centre, came in averaging 20 points per game, but UFV limited him to eight on Friday.
The Cascades (3-0) and Timberwolves (0-3) clash again on Saturday at 7 p.m. at UFV’s Envision Athletic Centre.
“I’m guessing they’ll bring a lot more intensity,” Brown predicted. “That’s what we’re ready for, that’s what we’re prepared for.”
Friesen was heartened to see his team show improvement over the previous weekend – their pair of regular season-opening road wins over the UBC Okanagan Heat didn’t come easily.
“That’s what we talked about this week in practice – the first weekend of the year (vs. UBC-O), we thought we could have played a lot better,” he said. “Defensively we were a lot better (vs. UNBC), and offensively we moved the ball much, much better.”
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