Edward Milne Wolverines are ready to show those sharp teeth as they battle it out right on home turf at this weekend’s EMCS Wolverine Classic basketball tournament.
Their first challenge will be Mt. Doug, on Friday at 11:15 a.m., which will be a good test, said Wolverines coach Alex Wright.
Wright said he feels good about this one, considering his team finished second in the tournament they played in town two weekends ago, while being several players short.
“We played the first game with seven guys, so that’s a testament to the hard work those guys have put in to be able to out there and put forward a winning effort,” Wright said, adding that this was despite having only two subs on the bench.
Recently, the Wolves played in a finals game versus Oak Bay’s B team, losing by 12 points instead of 17 just the week before, and while that may not seem as much of a big improvement, Wright sees it as a step forward.
“We made improvements, we had it close, we were within six of the couple of minutes left and just kind of ran out of juice at the end there,” he said, adding that in the last game, they had to just make do with only eight guys there.
Last week, the Wolves played at Royal Bay and won that game by 18 points, leaving EMCS with a big win, and in good spirits.
As far as main competition goes, Wright said it’s hard to predict what those teams will be like this time, considering players come and go and coaches flux in and out.
“There’s guys you remember from last year of being good, then there’s some guy that you’ve never seen before, and all of a sudden it’s a different team and whole new metric.”
Wright said regardless of who they play, he wants the Wolverines to be ready for anybody.
“We play everybody the same, play everybody tough, just defend ourselves at home, and get a perfect home record, so we can have that confidence going into playoffs.”
Saturday’s championship game will be at 7 p.m., and whether the Wolves play in that depends on how they do on Friday’s match.
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