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They’re going in as No. 1 — and hope to leave as No. 1.
The University of Saskatchewan Huskies, who captured the Canada West conference crown with a 73-42 win over the University of Alberta back on Feb. 25, are the top seed at this week’s U Sports Women’s Final 8. The eight-team national basketball tournament runs from Thursday to Sunday at the Saville Community Sports Centre on the U of A campus in Edmonton.
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This is only the second time that Saskatchewan comes into women’s basketball nationals as the top seed. The last time: 2020, days before the COVID-19 pandemic brought the world to a halt, when they won the second of two national championships in program history.
The Huskies (19-1 during the regular season and 3-0 in the playoffs) face eighth-seeded University of Calgary Dinos in quarterfinal action Thursday (6 p.m. MST) in Edmonton.
Calgary was awarded the at-large berth by the tournament-seeding committee, which is made up of U Sports women’s basketball coaches. Calgary finished with a 16-4 regular-season record and was ranked No. 5 in the final U Sports national top-10 of the regular season before being upset by Alberta in the Canada West quarterfinals.
Once the eight participating teams are established, teams are seeded based on the conference playoff results. Conference champions can’t be seeded lower than No. 6 to try to avoid intra-conference matchups in the first round.
In other quarterfinal games scheduled for Thursday, No. 2 Carleton University Ravens (Ontario University Athletics champions: 21-1, 3-0 playoffs) meet No. 7 University of Fraser Valley Cascades (Canada West bronze medallists, 17-3, 2-1); No. 3 Saint Mary’s University Huskies (Atlantic University Sport champions, 17-3, 2-0) meet No. 6 Queen’s University Gaels (OUA finalist, 18-4, 2-1); and No. 4 Laval Rouge et Or (Quebec RSEQ champions, 16-0, 2-0) take on No. 5 Alberta Pandas (Canada West finalists, 14-6, 3-1).
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Consolation games will take place Friday night, leading to the fifth-place game on Saturday at 3 p.m. (MST) The semifinals are set for 6 and 8 p.m. Saturday. The championship weekend concludes Sunday with the bronze-medal game at 5 p.m. and the championship at 7:30 p.m.
All 11 games from the eight-team competition will be broadcast live on CBC Sports digital platforms in English. The schedule will be available throughout the tournament at usports.ca/en/broadcast
HARMS, NEUDORF WIN U SPORT AWARDS
Another University of Saskatchewan sport season has come to an end as the Huskies wrestling team competed at the U Sports national championships on the weekend in Guelph, walking away with multiple silver medals and two national awards.
Competing in the women’s 56-kilogram division, SueAnne Harms claimed a silver medal and was also named the U Sports female wrestling community service award winner, while teammate Donovan Neudorf took home the same award for male wrestlers.
Other silver medals in the women’s division went to Abby Wolff (50 kg), Sierra Mullin (53 kg), Cailtin Clatney (59 kg) and Myah Phillips (83 kg), while Judah Arthurs earned the only medal on the Huskies men’s side with a silver in the 82 kg division.
Overall, the women’s team captured third at nationals with 55 points and the men’s team finished fifth with 35 points.
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