Kodiaks aim for improvements amid tight divisional playoff battle

By Lethbridge Herald on January 15, 2025.

Herald Photo by Justin Seward Lethbridge Polytechnic Kodiaks Jackson Wright battles to get the ball back from Zayne Vernon of Red Deer Polytechnic after being blocked by him during ACAC men's basketball action at Val Matteotti Gymnasium over the weekend.

BY Justin Seward

Lethbridge Herald

The Lethbridge Polytechnic Kodiaks men’s basketball team will look to improve on a key strength while getting better on other aspects of their game in what is turning out to be a playoff battle in the second semester.

“We need to continue to become better and better at defence, that’s one of our strengths,” said Ryan Heggie, Kodiak men’s head coach.

The Kodiaks turnover ratio has been strong so far with only giving up 14 to 15 per game, which Heggie considers to be not bad in the ACAC.

Heggie liked the team’s shooting percentage of over 50 per cent last weekend against Red Deer.

“If that could happen every game that’d be awesome,” said Heggie.

“But a lot of that comes with ball movement and sharing the basketball. So we need to get better at that.”

Heggie would like to see more consistent offence.

“We’re going to kind of focus on becoming better on offence (and) becoming a better a three-point shooting team because before the semester break we were at 28 per cent. We’d like to get that up into the 30s,” said Heggie.

Heggie would like to see the amount of assists increase to 19 or 20 per game and feels is something that would help them.

Rebounding and boxing out are other aspects of the Kodiaks game that they need to work on in  second semester.

“To get better at rebounding, you (have) got to be better at boxing out and you have to buy into that mentality of boxing out though out because it takes work,” said Heggie.

The Kodiaks, who sit in third place with a 7-4 record, will be jockeying for playoff positioning  in the South Division, as they play all divisional opponents in the second semester and seven out of the eight teams are vying for four spots in the championship.

“You go into the weekend knowing you want to take two, but you also want the split and the point difference,” said Heggie.

Heggie says the head to heads are very important.

The Kodiaks swept Red Deer Polytechnic last weekend and will look to keep the winning ways going when they play SAIT in a home-and home this weekend.