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Saskatchewan high schools will look to end the province’s championship drought at the Bedford Road Invitational Tournament (BRIT) this weekend.
A team from Saskatchewan hasn’t won the basketball tournament since 2015 when Regina LeBoldus earned its second title in as many years.
This year there are seven teams from Saskatchewan competing – five from Saskatoon and two from Regina.
Saskatoon will be represented by Bedford Road Collegiate, Walter Murray Collegiate, Holy Cross High School, Bethlehem High School and Aden Bowman Collegiate. Aden Bowman is replacing Edmonton’s St. Peter the Apostle High School as that team was unable to attend the tournament because of travel issues.
Regina will be represented by Campbell Collegiate and Michael A. Riffel High School.
The tournament will also feature three teams from Alberta (Raymond, Brooks and Harry Ainlay) and two teams from B.C. (Vancouver’s St. George and Langley Christian School).
This year, the students from Walter Murray will be trying to flip the script of last year’s tournament when they made it to the final but lost to Raymond 74-65.
Scott Hawley is the head coach of the Walter Murray team, and played in the tournament himself as a student. He said there’s nothing quite like playing at BRIT.
“We’re super excited. BRIT is always a really great tournament – really great event. The excitement is always there to come to this tournament,” Hawley said a day before his team gets their tournament underway against Brooks on Friday night.
“We want to come in and hopefully win it, but at the very least you’re going to play three great teams and have an experience that when you leave BRIT, you’re better than when you went into it.”
Hawley is currently coaching the best basketball team in Saskatoon. Walter Murray has compiled a 6-0 record during the young season and has accumulated a +357 score differential. Hawley said his team is taking the tournament seriously, and the group worked hard over the Christmas break to ensure they were going to be sharp and ready to compete on the big stage.
Two players hoping to lead the Walter Murray back to the championship game this year will be last year’s tournament all-stars, Dillyn Morin and Hawley’s son Zach.
“We brought back quite a few players from last year and we brought in two guys who we didn’t have last year from Prince Albert and Calgary. We feel a lot better this year about our team,” Zach said.
Both players said the biggest strength of their team is shooting threes.
“I think everyone on the floor can shoot the three,” Morin explained. “Even when we have our starting group, at least four people can shoot at all times. That makes us really hard to guard.”
Zach turned some heads last year at a tournament in Edmonton. During that event he participated in a three-point contest and hit 28 three-pointers in a single minute.
But the elder Hawley said he knows three-pointers can’t be the only thing that leads the team to success.
“We don’t want to rely on it as much, as we want it to become a part of our overall offensive game. We talk about three-level scoring – at the rim, in the mid-range and also with the three ball. The ability to shoot from deep draws defences out and makes them play farther from the basket and it opens things up from all the levels for us,” Hawley explained.
“We certainly don’t want to live and die with it. Last year, in the final against Raymond, we ran out of gas with the three ball. That was a lesson learned for us, for sure.”
Hawley said the ideal outcome is to win the championship, but he knows it won’t be an easy run.
“We’re a confident group, but we also understand the challenge ahead of us. We know that we need to play our best basketball to give us a chance to be in that final,” he added.
“Our goal is to play at the highest level we can and see where it turns out.”
The tournament runs until Saturday, and the complete schedule can be found here.