The Alberta Golden Bears were red-hot offensively and airtight defensively on Friday evening, and it all added up to a long night for the University of the Fraser Valley men's basketball team.
The U SPORTS No. 5-ranked Golden Bears shot 54.4 per cent from the field, including a scorching 51.9 per cent (14-for-27) from beyond the arc, on their way to a 99-69 victory over the Cascades at the Envision Financial Athletic Centre.
The hosts, meanwhile, struggled with their shooting, hitting just 34.2 per cent of their attempts including 20.7 per cent (6-for-29) from long distance.
Alberta (3-2) and UFV (1-4) clash again on Saturday evening at the EFAC (7 p.m.,
CanadaWest.tv).
"Alberta is a very good team," UFV head coach
Adam Friesen noted. "If you don't come out with energy and compete as hard as you need to, stuff like this can happen. We just didn't compete hard enough and didn't bring the energy needed, and things kind of snowballed from there.
"We had a tough start offensively, and they came out really quick. It was tough to respond from that point."
The Bears raced out to a 24-10 lead at the end of the first quarter behind a trio of three-pointers from Ivan Ikomey, and expanded the margin to 50-25 at the half. The deficit proved too much for UFV to overcome.
Brody Clarke led the Bears' balanced attack with 17 points and added nine rebounds. Rookie Adam Paige, a Surrey, B.C. product, posted 14 points and six boards, while Geoffrey James and Brandon Meiklejohn notched 10 points apiece.
The Cascades, missing second-leading scorer
Sukhjot Bains due to injury, were paced by
Vick Toor's 16 points off the bench.
Mark Johnson scored 11 and
Andrew Morris had 10.
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