Brent Mutis, CapU Sport Information & Compliance Officer
When the Capilano Blues hit the hardwood at the 2022 CCAA national championships at Humber College in Toronto on Friday, March 25, they’ll be staring down the host team and likely a noisy hometown crowd.
CapU has drawn the host Humber Hawks for their first game of the tournament and with the game being on a Friday evening, it’s a good bet the home side will have lots of supporters on their side.
Humber is the No. 3-ranked team in the country and carry a 17-5 record, including a 9-0 mark in conference play. They have an imposing forward group led by the big body of 6-foot-8 Frank Mitchell who is pulling down 18 rebounds a game this season. Fellow forwards Jimmy Rich and Rahsaan Chambers are 6-foot-4 and 6-foot-6 respectively and take up almost as much space as Mitchell.
The Blues are not without their own weapons. PACWEST First-Team All-Star Tyrone Asenoguan is capable of leading the team in points, rebounds or assists on any given night and is a much of a threat from three-point range (41.5 per cent in the regular season) as he is to get to the rim and finish.
Fifth-year guard Martin Bogajev loves to shoot the three and has plenty of range as evidenced by his 14-of-31 (45.2 per cent) showing from downtown at the PACWEST provincials. Veteran guard CJ Campbell does a bit of everything and has proven useful as a rebounder as the Blues typically have a guard-heavy lineup on the floor.
Sam Bailey is generally the only true forward in the Blues starting lineup and uses an athletic 6-foot-7 frame to clean the glass and alter shots close to the rim. The North Vancouver native grabbed 29 rebound in three games at the provincials and can score the ball as well; he had 14 points and three blocks in CapU’s PACWEST semifinal win over Camosun March 4 where he was named player of the game.
Capilano’s starting lineup is rounded out by fifth-year guard Brenden Bailey, who will finish his career among the top-five all-time scorers in PACWEST history and averaged 14.3 points per game at the provincials.
Blues head coach Alex Van Samang likes his team's chances to make noise at the national tournament and spoke to that in a recent article in the North Shore News.
The Blues draw confidence from their showing against CCAA No. 1-ranked Vancouver Island University (VIU) in the PACWEST gold-medal game. CapU came within a last-second three-pointer of forcing overtime against VIU and proved to themselves they can hang with anyone. Another reason for optimism is the variety of options the Blues have scoring the ball. In the final four regular-season games, Capilano was led each game in scoring by a different player with Asenoguan, Campbell, Bogajev and Brenden Bailey each taking turns. Those four each averaged double digits at the PACWEST provincials as well.
In Friday’s matchup with Humber, it will take that collective effort to move past the quarter-finals and into the semis where the winner of the Cégep de Thetford – Southern Alberta Institute of Technology (SAIT) game will provide the opposition.
This is the first trip to the national tournament for men’s basketball since 2003 when a Paul Eberhardt-coached a Blues side led by point guard Jordan Yu and forwards Chris Porteous and Tim Pershick who was named a tournament all-star.
