Guard Diego Maffia will begin the fifth and final season of his starry University of Victoria Vikes basketball career in Langley on Nov. 1 against the Trinity Western Spartans before the Vikes’ home debut on Ken and Kathy Shields Court in CARSA gym on Nov. 2 against the Fraser Valley Cascades.
The Canada West men’s and women’s hoops schedules for 2024-25 were announced Wednesday with major shifts from previous seasons. Teams from the B.C. Division will only play each other in the regular season while teams from the Prairie Division will also only play amongst themselves. While that will highlight regional rivalries, lost will be games for B.C. teams against legacy Canada West rivals such as the University of Alberta Golden Bears, University of Calgary Dinos, University of Lethbridge Pronghorns and University of Saskatchewan Huskies.
After the opening weekend, UVic’s home dates at CARSA gym for both the men’s and women’s Vikes teams are against the UNBC Timberwolves on Nov. 8-9, Trinity Western on Jan. 10-11, UBC Thunderbirds on Jan. 23, UBC-Okanagan on Jan. 25 and the Thompson Rivers WolfPack on Feb. 7-8.
Another change, one that will be more welcome, will take place in the playoffs. The three-time Canada West men’s champion Vikes and the mercurial Maffia, who is playing pro this summer in the CEBL with the Vancouver Bandits, can complete the four-peat in front of their own fans at CARSA gym if all goes well under new UVic head coach and former Canadian national team player and European pro Murphy Burnatowski.
Last season’s Canada West playoff tournaments took place all in one location, with the men in Winnipeg and the women in Abbotsford. This coming season’s playoffs will revert to the old format of the higher seeds hosting the games in their gyms. The top-five men’s and women’s teams from the B.C. Division regular season and top-seven from the Prairie Division will advance to the playoffs. All post-season games will be single-loss elimination.
The top four seeds will host play-in round and quarter-final games on Feb. 21-22. The semifinals are scheduled for Feb. 28 and March 1. The dates for the men’s and women’s Canada West championship games are March 7 or March 8.
The men’s and women’s U Sports national championship tournaments will take place March 13-16 at Doug Mitchell Thunderbird Olympic Arena in Vancouver. The UBC men’s and women’s teams will get automatic berths as hosts, not an insignificant perk, considering unheralded host team Laval Rouge et Or upset top-ranked UVic in the first round enroute to recording the greatest upset in U Sports men’s basketball history by winning the national championship this past season.
Meanwhile, the UVic men’s team will open its exhibition season in the Baha Mar tournament July 30 to Aug. 8 in the Bahamas featuring the NCAA Div. 1 Louisville Cardinals and University of Rhode Island Rams, Canada West Vikes and Calgary Dinos and the Bahamas national team.
