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Victoria 73, UC-Santa Barbara 61 The Vikes never trailed in the contest and found themselves ahead by many as 18 points in the second half. Tyler Hass (4th, Victoria, BC) hammered home a dunk with less than three minutes remaining, deflating the Gauchos and dashed any hopes of a comeback. Hass finished with a Vikes-high of 18 points on 7-for-10 shooting, also adding six rebounds. Victoria led 40-24 at halftime before watching the Gauchos come back to within 8 but the Vikes quickly stretched the lead back to 12 and coasted to the victory. Mike Tucker's report from the UVic web site Vikes take win from NCAA here is a report from the Gauchos web site Gauchos can't overcome cold shooting effort and click here for Box Score

UPDATES: Nice to get an update on the new recruits from UCFV Head Coach Barnaby Craddock who notes that based on the weekend, Ravi Athwal showed he should be able to play right away at the university level. As well, Doug Plumb played last year at a four year degree granting institution and will not be eligible to play until Christmas. Mike Mckay showed over the weekend that he will improve our rebounding and should also contribute for the Cascades this year, finding time for him along side 6'8 fifth year Kyle Graves. Tristan Smith from California is in his first year of eligibility and showed flashes of what he will be as he adjusts to the CIS game and systems. We plan to have more comments about what coaches learned about their teams after the weekend games in the coming days.

Former UBC All-Canadian Casey Archibald is settling in well with WBC Wels of the Austrian Bundesliga, recently beginning the 5th week of training camp. Archibald says that the experience has been great thus far as the club is very professional and the situation seems to be a good one. The club trains twice a day, 6 days a week, with 3 of those sessions being in the weight room followed by an hour of running. Other North Americans on Casey's team include one other Canadian (Richard Anderson, former national team player, SFU) plus 2 Americans with one more coming in today (Wednesday). The team had a 4 man come in last week for a 1 week tryout (E.J. Drayton from UNC Charlotte), but it didn't work out for him, so he is off for a tryout in Hungary. His club also has two players from the Czech Republic with the remaining players hailing from various cities in Austria (point guard is the national team's starting point guard). The team has had a couple informal scrimmages in which Archibald played over 30 minutes and this past Saturday was their first formal exhibition game which was open to the public. WBC Wels played Gissen which is a team in the top division in Germany (very good league), and defeated them 77-63 with Archibald playing 30 + minutes at the 1 and the wing spot, scoring 15 points. The team leaves today for a series of 3 exhibiton games in Prague, followed by a mini training camp. Archibald notes: "Overall its been a great. The training is very competitive and the conditioning is like nothing I've ever done before, but it's good." Thanks for the updates Casey and we hope to hear more from you as the season progresses.

IN GERMANY, UVic grad Brandon Ellis has been settling in to his accumstomed role of perimeter shooter. Ellis signed on with Duesseldorf of the German 2.Bundesliga Pro A league. This season the league went from 2 imports to allow 6 for the first time, so imports usually were leading scorers or better players on their respective college/university teams. Players such as Sean Mallon from Gonzaga and Keonta Howell from Toledo have joined Ellis on Duesseldorf. Ellis says that the offense his team runs suits his style of play perfectly. "The offense has me coming off screens to shoot the ball", notes Ellis. "The coach found out that I can handle myself and shoot the ball well immediately, so I enjoy the confidence that he has in me. We get up and down the floor fast and with our offensive style it should make for a great experience this year with the opportunity to play extremely well." Ellis, who did not sign with an agent until the middle of June, says he had a number of offers in Europe only about one week after signing with his agent. Best of luck to Brandon in Germany.