Horns basketball go 3-1 against Thompson Rivers Wolfpack

By Justin Seward - Lethbridge Herald on November 30, 2022.

The University of Lethbridge Pronghorns basketball teams had a successful weekend at home against the Thompson Rivers University Wolfpack.

The women’s team swept their games against the Wolfpack with a 76-39 win on Friday, followed by a 79-58 win on Saturday.

“You know, it’s nice to be back at home and for us to come off the road and to get two wins at home is key for us,” said head coach Dave Waknuk.

“I think we’re overall happy with how we defended and then I think we had a good offensive output on both nights. I think all-in-all, I’m pretty happy with the two wins.”

Waknuk wanted the team to look at the overall quality of their play in both contests more than anything based on the outcomes.

“I think for us, it was just trying to execute,” said Waknuk.

“We knew that they were going to play tough defensively. So we were going to have to be ready offensively and then we’ve just been trying to show improvement in the areas that we’ve focused on over the last few weeks.”

With the wins, the women’s team record is now at 5-3.

The women’ will wrap up the first half at home against the University of Calgary Dinos at 6 p.m. on Friday and 5 p.m. on Saturday.

The men’s team pushed late in the game on Saturday, but it wasn’t enough to sweep the Wolfpack, who came out with a 78-74 win.

The Horns split the weekend after an 81-69 win on Friday night.

A difference maker in Saturday’s night’s contest was foul shots— which saw the Wolfpack make 29 shots to the Horns’ 14.

“(That) killed us and a bad second quarter,” said Horns head coach Jermaine Small.

“Yeah, they definitely beat us on the foul line. For some reason, we literally shoot ourselves in the foot by taking so many threes (pointers) and when we make them, they’re great. When we miss them, it’s terrible. There’s no in between.”

Small gave TRU credit.

“I thought that they played with a purpose and they kind of regrouped from last night and I thought they did a good job,” said Small.

“And for us, I just thought you know another day we took off the second quarter for some reason. And we kind of played to their record and you know I just told them, ‘You play with fire, you get burned,'” said Small.

The Horns (2-6) will wrap up the first half of Canada West play with two games at home against the Calgary Dinos on Friday (8 p.m.) and Saturday (7 p.m.).

“Obviously, that’s in many minds É our rivalry games,” said Small.

“I expect the juices to be at a high. But we’ve just got to get focused on getting better and I mean you know we’ve still just got Deng (Dak) and Karter (Fry) back. Obviously they got some reps this weekend. But they’ve got to get more reps ,and for us it’s just focusing on the little things and just playing 40 minutes.”