‘6 ports

Canada West not Budging on 2014-15
Basketball Schedule Issue

Paul Esau
The Cascade

he 2014-15 season is going to

be an unusual one for the UFV
Cascades basketball programs, as
they play the same five teams again
and again... and again...and again.

On October 30, UFV’s motion

to rescind the 2014-15 schedule
accepted at a previous Canada
West meeting in June was defeated
by a vote of 22-6, almost ensuring
the schedule will become a reality
next season. Each of the 14 voting
schools in Canada West are allowed
two voting representatives at each
meeting, and only UFV, Manitoba,
and UBC-O voted in favour of
rescinding the schedule.

Currently, every team in Canada
West (a region of Canadian
Interuniversity Sport, or CIS) plays
every other team at least once per
season. The addition of six teams in
the last five years has necessitated
a shake-up of scheduling practices,
since playing all 16 other Canada

West teams in 2014-

2015 would stress each program’s
athletes and budget. Canada West
representatives accepted and
analyzed numerous scheduling
proposals before the June meeting
where they decided to break

the league into two divisions:

a “Pioneer” division of the 11
“historical” members, and an
“Explorer” division of the six
“newer” members (including UFV).

Canada West responds:

According to Basil Hughton, Canada
West President and University of
Saskatchewan Athletic Director,
change is necessary. “I’m a
relatively new AD,” he said, “I’m
just entering my sixth year, and
when I first came on board we

had 11 full members. That was in
2008 ... and then we went up to the
point now where we have 14 full
members and three probationary.
We've seen a very big influx in new
schools, new members, and we’ve

obviously had rapid growth. And
the biggest challenge with
rapid growth is scheduling.”

Individual schedules
are voted in for each
Canada West sport,
and basketball, with
the most member
participation of any
sport, has its own
unique challenges.
Still, the 11 and
six divisional split
is controversial
in that it doesn’t
recognize
geographic
considerations,
historic program
rankings, or
numerical parity
between divisions.

“T think in fairness,” said
Hughton, “and this is me
editorializing now, not as the
president but as a member, I’m
saying, very clearly, there wasn’t
a good alternative in basketball.
The decision to put this [schedule]
forward was the best information
we had at the time and [the
best one] we could try given the
circumstances.”

In the six-team “Explorer” division,
UFV will play the other five teams
four times each to produce a 20-
game schedule. Some, including
UFV president Mark Evered in an
open letter to the presidents of
Canada West institutions, have
accused Canada West of creating

a “tiered” divisional structure
behind meaningless euphemisms.
While Hughton said, “the semantics
[of “Pioneer” and “Explorer”] are
lost on me; I didn’t like the words,
either one of them,” he maintains
that Evered and others are
mistaken.

“T can understand the perception
of tiering,” Hughton said, “but that
isn’t what we did.

“Let me rephrase what I said

earlier,’ he continued. “The
basketball schedule that

ultimately passed was the one that
membership felt was ... the best fit
for what they saw that they wanted
to do.”

Also voted on in late October was a
2014-15 Canada West playoff format
that is dependent on the results

of this season’s schedule. If the
2013-14 Canada West champion is
in the Pioneer Division, the 10-
team format will include the seven
top Pioneer teams and the three
top Explorer teams. If it happens

to be a Explorer champion, it will
be involve six Pioneer and four
Explorer teams. The Final Four
tournament will be hosted by the
highest remaining seed left after
the quarter-finals, rather than

the team with the best regular
season record (as under the current
format).

UFV’s next step:

Evered, vice president of students
Jody Gordon, and athletics
director Rocky Olfert have all been
highly critical of the upcoming
schedule, pointing out that it
hurts UFV’s recruiting appeal,
athletics prestige, and potential
competitiveness. Evered especially
has been a significant asset to UFV
resistance, despite the traditionally
hands-off role of university
presidents relative to CIS issues.

“Recognizing that decisions made
by CIS or any of its divisions could
have an impact on our institutions,”
Evered said, “it’s not unreasonable
that the president should have
some significant say in the work

of CIS and its divisions. There’s
still those who feel that presidents
should have more than an advisory
role; they should have a more
decisive role.”

Having already been defeated in an
attempt to rescind the motion that
led to the two-division 2014-2015
schedule, UFV will have to adopt
other measures in defending the
interests of UFV varsity programs.
Since the motion only dictates

the schedule for one season, both