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The national Senior women’s volleyball program is back and training in Winnipeg this week and Volleyball Canada released the names of those players invited to the camp that will determine the A and B teams going forward this summer.

There are no shortage of Manitobans among the 49 hopefuls looking to make one of the two squads, with the A team staying and training in Winnipeg to prepare for the Pan Am Cup later this summer.

Three former Manitoba Bisons — Tricia Mayba, Kristi Hunter and Kate Wasyliw — are among those invited, each of them having been through this process before. Soon-to-be-Bison Taylor Pischke, who has transferred back home after half a year at UC-Santa Barbara, is also in the mix.

Two with ties to the Winnipeg Wesmen are in attendance: Former Wesmen setter Amanda Bakker and libero Tesca Andrew-Wasylik, who graduated this season after being named conference libero of the year, got invites.

Brandon-born left side Lisa Barclay of the UBC Thunderbirds is a return invitee and is joined by her former high school and club teammate Kellie Baker of the Brandon Bobcats. Finally, St. Andrews product Megan Cyr, who is now at North Carolina State after a brief stint at Colorado, rounds out the list of Manitobans invited.

Barclay, Andrew-Wasylik, Mayba and Hunter all competed on the Senior B team that went to the FISU games last summer in Chinda.

The team will train through Thursday at the U of M.

* * *

It has been a couple of weeks of tremendous highs and lows for the national men’s volleyball team.

The Senior A team fell one win shy of an Olympic berth two weeks ago at the NORCECA qualifying tournament in Long Beach, Calif., a loss to the U.S. in the final sealing the team’s fate after it had stunned No. 5-ranked Cuba in straight sets in the round robin. With only the champion of the qualifier gaining entry to the Olympics, the No. 18-ranked Canadians couldn’t put together one more upset and lost to the sixth-ranked Americans in a three-set sweep that ended the country’s hopes for this Olympic cycle.

And while that disappointment surely took a while to wear off for the players involved, it was tempered slightly by a solid showing at the first leg of World League play this weekend in Toronto.

The Canadians went 2-1 in pool play, including a program-defining upset of world No. 1 Brazil on national TV on Saturday afternoon. The following day Canada was taken down in four sets by No. 4 Poland, but the past couple of weeks of play has shown just how close the Canadians are inching towards again being among the world’s best.

The team, which features Winnipeg’s Justin Duff, Brandon’s Dustin Schneider — both products of the Wesmen program — and former Bison Toon van Lankvelt of Rivers, is still considered a young group for the most part and just the Canadians’ reentry into the prestigious World League is a boon in itself to the program.  The World League is a 16-team invite-only competition that stretches over months and features the top teams on the planet.

What the Canadians’ loss in Long Beach showed was just how heartbreaking the entire Olympic process can be. You work for years to get one shot and, if you don’t get it, it’s another four long years away from happening again.

What it also showed, though, is Canada is not that far away from 2016.

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Twitter: @LarkinsWSun

I am an unabashed fan of the University of Nebraska Cornhuskers. And in my own little world, I also respect what the university and its athletics programs stand for — the fans are among the most hospitable you’ll find anywhere, and the face of Nebraska Athletics, Tom Osborne, is a man who has perhaps never had a bad word uttered about him.

Nebraska running backs coach Ron Brown has come under fire for controversial remarks regarding homosexuality.

So it’s been a bit disconcerting to me in the past few months as Nebraska has made national headlines because of an assistant coach. Running backs coach Ron Brown has had all the big publications typing his name of late, including the Washington Post, which otherwise would never be a place you’d turn to get your Cornhusker news. In short, Brown has publicly denounced homosexuality and, as a man of faith, cited scripture as a reason why homosexuality is a sin. This ESPN.com story sums the details up well enough for me to proceed with the point of this posting.

Friday, while all of the state of Nebraska had its focus on Huskers eligible for the three-day long NFL Draft, Omaha World Herald columnist Tom Shatel posted on his own blog an opinion piece on Brown and the sticky relationship his controversial public remarks create between himself and the university. That blog prompted me to email Shatel, a writer whom I respect and follow for his ability and experience in the field. Tom was kind enough during one of the busiest times of the year as a football writer to reply back to me.

For today, I am posting my letter to Tom here, so as to share my opinions on a divisive issue that just happens to involve the football team I’ve loved since I was an 8-year-old. As Tom said in his reply to me: “This is a complicated issue and I don’t profess to have any answers. But I do know coach Brown and I admire him, though don’t always agree.”

It is a complex issue. Freedom of speech is an unalienable right, but that freedom does not put someone beyond reproach, and it calls into question what is expected of a university when one of its employees exercises that freedom in a manner that puts the school in opposition to its own standards of equality.

Anyway, you can form your own opinion on what is right. I will provide my opinion via the letter I wrote to Tom Shatel.

Hi Tom

I am a sports reporter in Winnipeg, Manitoba, and a Nebraska fan since I’ve been a child. The story behind that fanship is a fairly extended one, so I’ll spike the details in favour of just saying: I’m not from Nebraska, nor have I ever lived there — but I always speak fondly of its people, and they have made being a fan all the more enjoyable.

I contact you in regard to your blog about Ron Brown. I already have my opinions on coach Brown but your piece did raise some very valid points that I took into consideration, some angles I hadn’t yet come at the story from, and I thought it was a fair and even-handed column.

My own opinion is that I struggle greatly to support Brown because of his very public stance on homosexuality. I can’t for a moment accept any human who would disseminate a viewpoint that promotes hatred, no matter what spiritual source out of which that viewpoint is borne. And in being anti-homosexuality, Brown is letting his religious leanings marginalize a segment of our population and, in so doing, is saying to all those hate-filled people who still wish ill on homosexuals that it’s OK to harbour those feelings. To every young kid who is being bullied, to every person ostracized by family because of archaic beliefs, to every kid who has committed suicide because they thought that was an easier answer than living with the pain — pain we as a society create with our intolerance — Brown says they are the ones who are wrong; that those human beings are deserving of admonishment.

You know Coach Brown much better than I ever will, and part of me knows he’s likely a fine man who just happens to possess some viewpoints I can’t possibly condone. I was struck by his speech at Penn State enough to tweet it and Facebook share it, despite my not having religious convictions of my own. I have always believed that the fans and the athletics department that I passionately follow at least wants to do the right thing and stand for things we can all be proud of.

We are in 2012 now, for heaven sake. We just saw a black man score the biggest goal of his NHL hockey career and, instead of sports fans and himself celebrating it unconditionally, we were instead discussing ignorance in the form of racist tweets, a sickening lesson that history isn’t all that far in the past after all. For as far as we have come on this continent in race issues, we are none of us naive enough to believe it’s been exterminated. So, if these issues are still prevailing in an area where we HAVE admittedly made strides, how far must we be away from giving equality to people whom we’ve been so slow-footed to accept?

For me, Tom, this is a cut and dry issue: No one in the University of Nebraska — in this day and age — should be standing alongside someone who wishes to spew hatred and tell millions of people in this world that their life is condemnable. In my opinion Brown should be fired because, as a leader of young men, he should never be spouting a viewpoint that tangentially teaches those young men to go forward in their own lives with a viewpoint of bigotry. Simply by percentages, Brown has undoubtedly coached a gay athlete at some point, and while that athlete was likely good enough on the football field, Brown publicly lets you know that person would not be good enough as a human being.

We should be beyond this. Right-minded people should know better. But we aren’t. And, often times, they don’t.

Coach Brown shows us how far away we really are. He speaks against equality. He speaks against harmony. He speaks against a world where everyone can feel comfortable in their own skin. He is a living, breathing double-negative: He speaks AGAINST anti-discrimination.

In the end, Nebraska can side with him and put out disclaimers that he doesn’t represent their viewpoints. Mr. Osborne can say there should be “clarity” between your speeches you give as an individual, and those that you give as an employee of the University of Nebraska. Everyone at UNL can say whatever they want in hopes of creating their own distance between church and state (so to speak), but the action is what matters.

And the University of Nebraska can never be taken seriously as an advocate of anti-discrimination so long as a very public figure of theirs continues to spread a message that flies in the face of equality and freedom. The messages he spreads are not education, they are myopic, hate-filled directives, and an institution of higher learning should know better than to be party to it and let it continue.

Thank you, Tom. I apologize for the long-windedness. Continue your good work. I will continue to read.

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Twitter: @LarkinsWSun

This is going to come as a shock to some of you, but Canada produces quiiiiite a bit of professional hockey players. Like, in the NHL even!

And so while it’s true that Canadians are everywhere in the NHL, it cannot be said that products of Canadian university are everywhere in the NHL.

Anyone who has followed a lick of hockey is aware of how a kid goes from Estevan, Sask., Goderich, Ont., or Pictou, N.S., to the NHL. Play bantam, get drafted into junior, play midget, go to junior, get drafted into the NHL. If you really go out on a limb you take the bold move of eschewing major-junior to try your hand at the NCAA level. Of course the execution and the options are not this simple or cut and dry. There are other roads to the professional ranks, but the point is: One of those roads is rarely one that leads out of the CIS or, previously, the CIAU.

This revelation (that’s not nearly any kind of revelation) comes on the heels of the Washington Capitals’ Game 7 overtime win over the Boston Bruins on Wednesday night, with Joel Ward playing the role of OT hero for the Caps in the upset victory. Ward’s goal led me to tweet this shortly after:

Indeed Ward is a product of Charlottetown’s University of Prince Edward Island Panthers (although not the finest Panthers product, as you’ll read). He, like many other Canadians, did go the major-junior route prior to UPEI, having played four years with Owen Sound of the OHL, but his crack at the AHL and NHL did not come until after he had put in four years at the CIS level. He has now had himself a decent little pro career, first with Minnesota for a cup of coffee, then a three-year run with Nashville that allowed him to sign a four-year, $12-million deal in Washington this summer, largely off the back of a 13-points-in-12-games playoff performance for the Predators a year ago.

So all of this got me to thinking:

If you’ve followed the NHL for a long time, likely the name that pops out to you when you think of Canadian university-to-NHL is Randy Gregg. The former Oilers defenceman famously got his start at the University of Alberta when he was trying to pursue a medical degree and wound up having a 10-year NHL career that included five Stanley Cups.

So what other CIAU/CIS products are out there?

I won’t sit here and pretend that I am generating names for this list off the top of my head with no aids. Instead, on Wednesday night when I was thinking about this, I immediately thought of Gregg, then added in Winnipegger Mike Ridley, former Western Mustang Steve Rucchin and put Cory Cross on the blue-line with Gregg, thereby putting two U of A alums together.

The rest I had to go searching for.

There were a couple of names that I forgot and should have remembered: Mathieu Darche has carved out a decent pro career since playing four years with McGill back in the late 90s; Stu Grimson was one I smacked my head about — what with him being a former Manitoba Bison.

There is an online list buried in the recesses of the Internet that tells us there have been far more university-to-NHL products than we might initially believe. Now, many of those names are players who had minimal NHL experience, and there’s many more who played in the early parts of the 20th century when undoubtedly going from a school like McGill to the NHL was no kind of shock. Nowadays, the system is much different, of course, and it simply doesn’t happen as often. So in going forward, I basically limited my selections to post-1970. That’s a fair time, in my opinion, because it was a time that it was still rare to go from CIAU to the NHL and it gives us 40-plus years, which is ample.

But, here’s what I came up with last night:

Ridley was one of the success stories and he was so right away. After two years at U of M (and prior to that in the MJHL), Ridley played 80 games with the New York Rangers and had 65 points as a rookie. He went on to play 12 seasons in the NHL with his best season in 1988-89 when he had 89 points in 80 games.

Rucchin was no slouch, either. He played 12 seasons, mostly with Anaheim, before playing one year each with the Rangers and Atlanta Thrashers.

MacAdam was a two-time all-star and was drafted right out of UPEI in 1972. He would go on to a long career as a durable linemate to Bobby Smith in Minnesota and recorded 240 and 591 points in 864 career games, ranking him second all-time in scoring among products from the Island.

Cross doesn’t provide a wow factor by any means, but that’s before acknowledging the guy ended up playing 12 seasons with Tampa, Toronto, NYR, Edmonton, Pittsburgh and Detroit. Cross was a big, physical presence on the blue-line and also a product of another little-used path to the NHL — the Supplemental Draft, which rarely resulted in unearthing pro talent and was scrapped in 1995.

Inness is probably the least remarkable of the six, but he had himself an OK little career in the 1970s (162 games, 3.40 goals against with Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and Washington) and, when it comes down to it, a guy with an action shot and hockey card as sweet looking as the ones Inness had will have a spot on my team any day. Seriously, look at those! (Note: Truly the greatest goaltender eligible here would be Lorne Chabot, who came out of Laval in 1920, went on to win the Vezina and two Stanley Cups, and was the first hockey player to ever be on the cover of Time Magazine.)

In addition to Grimson and Darche, a few others who missed the cut:

• P.J. Stock: St. Francis Xavier; Current CBC Hockey Night in Canada analyst who played 235 NHL games.

• Don Spring: Alberta. This is for the Jets fans. Played 259 games over four seasons all with Winnipeg, and is the only player on our list (or any other NHL list, for that matter) born in Venezuela.

• Jody Shelley: Dalhousie. Played only 19 games for the Tigers after coming out of the QMJHL, but has gone on to a long career as one tough hombre. He holds penalty records for his junior team (Halifax), an AHL team (Syracuse) and an NHL team (41 PIMs in one game is a single-game record for San Jose), and earlier this season received a 10-game suspension for boarding … wait for it …

… • Darryl Boyce: New Brunswick. Yes, Boyce was on the receiving end of the pre-season Shelley hit, providing us our first segue from one player to another. Boyce, now a member of the Columbus Blue Jackets, is in his third season in the NHL and has a CIS national championship with UNB to his credit.

• Brent Severyn: Alberta. Played seven seasons with six teams after being drafted by Winnipeg in 1984. Won a Stanley Cup with Dallas in 1999.

• Mike Kennedy: UBC. Drafted in 1991, played two seasons with the T-Birds before embarking on a long pro career that included five seasons in the NHL with Dallas, Toronto and the Islanders. In his best season, he had nine goals and 26 points in 61 games for Dallas.

• Rick Bowness: Saint Mary’s. I swear the Winnipeg Jets references are only coincidental. Bowness, currently a coach with the Vancouver Canucks, played six seasons with four teams in the NHL, playing his final NHL games in Winnipeg, where he’d then move on to be an assistant coach.

• Jim Nill: Calgary. No, really, I swear the Jets thing is a coincidence. A teammate of Gregg’s on the 1980 Canadian Olympic team, Nill has made his name more off the ice after his career than on it. Now the highly-successful assistant  GM in Detroit, Nill played 524 career cames and registered 124 points in nine NHL seasons with St. Louis, Vancouver, Boston, Winnipeg and Detroit. Nill’s son Trevor recently played his senior season at Michigan State.

• Mike Tomlak: Western. He played only four seasons (and 141 NHL games) but he gets in here because he played for the Hartford Whalers, and I loved the Whalers. (I beg you — BEG you — to find me a better logo in the history of professional sports AND FOR THAT MATTER a team that had a better celebration song than this: The Brass Bonanza. You can’t, you won’t, so don’t waste my time and yours trying.)

• Bob Murdoch: Waterloo. Played 12 seasons for Montreal, L.A., Atlanta and Calgary and won two Stanley Cups with the Canadiens. Coached three seasons after his career, with Chicago and Winnipeg, where he won the Jack Adams Award in 1989.

• Mike Babcock: McGill. The current Red Wings head coach has never hid his CIAU roots. A former Redmen player and University of Lethbridge coach, Babcock is occasionally seen wearing a McGill tie on the bench and in post-game interviews.

• Mike Keenan: Toronto. Played one season with the Varsity Blues and later went on to coach them to a CIAU title. Of course had a long career as an NHL coach, winning the 1994 Stanley Cup with the Rangers.

• Todd Elik: Regina. Had 329 points in 448 games with L.A., Edmonton, Minnesota, San Jose, St. Louis and Boston.

• Paul MacLean: Dalhousie. Now the head coach of the Ottawa Senators, MacLean played 719 games between St. Louis, Winnipeg and Detroit. He is part of a unique NHL trivia question as well having played on the 84-85 Jets who are the only team in NHL history to have six 30-goal scorers in one season.

• Yannick Tremblay: St. Thomas. The only Tommie to make the list, Tremblay played nine seasons in the NHL with Toronto, Atlanta and Vancouver. He now plays in Austria.

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Twitter: @LarkinsWSun

One day after the NFL did everything short of having Billy Crystal host a gala to announce its league schedule, the Canada West — and more specifically the Manitoba Bisons — released their football schedules.

The Bisons will start their season on the road, opening the 2012 conference schedule on Sept. 1 in Vancouver against the UBC Thunderbirds. The BIG day, though, is the home opener when U of M plays its first game in the soon-to-be-brand-new Investors Group Field and that will happen Saturday, Sept. 8, at 2 p.m. start against the Saskatchewan Huskies. That game will be a prelude of sorts to the annual Banjo Bowl between the Winnipeg Blue Bombers and Saskatchewan Roughriders that goes the next day at IGF.

Four of the team’s eight conference games are at home (of course), and the most curious is the three-in-a-row-at-home stretch early in the season that means three of the team’s final four games (and two of the three after the bye) will come on the road. That will certainly put an importance on coming out of the first four games with a positive record.

The three teams that the Bisons play home-and-homes with are UBC (Sept. 1, Oct. 20), Saskatchewan (Sept. 8, Oct. 12) and Calgary (Sept. 15, Oct. 27). They play Regina and Alberta (sub.-500 teams last season) once.

Here’s the full schedule released today (all times Central):

Sat., Sept. 1: at UBC Thunderbirds, Thunderbird Stadium, 4 p.m.
Sat., Sept. 8: Saskatchewan Huskies, Investors Group Field, 2 p.m.
*Sat., Sept. 15: Calgary Dinos, Investors Group Field, 1 p.m.
Sat., Sept. 22: Alberta Golden Bears, Investors Group Field, 1 p.m.
Fri., Sept. 28: at Regina Rams, Mosaic Stadium, 8 p.m.
Sat., Oct. 6: CONFERENCE BYE
Fri., Oct. 12: at Saskatchewan Huskies, Griffiths Stadium, 8 p.m.
Sat., Oct. 20: UBC Thunderbirds, Investors Group Field, 1 p.m.
Sat., Oct. 27: at Calgary Dinos, McMahon Stadium, 6 p.m.
Sat., Nov. 3: Canada West Semi-Finals
Sat., Nov. 10: Canada West Final (76th Hardy Cup)
Fri., Nov. 16: CIS Semi-Final: Mitchell Bowl – Canada West @ OUA
Fri., Nov. 23: CIS Championship: 48th Vanier Cup in Toronto
* Homecoming Game

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Twitter: @LarkinsWSun

Back to the blog again here folks after some down time away from what was a busy university scene again in Manitoba this season.

To get fired up again, I’m excited about what will be uploading to Sun Radio over the course of the next four or five days because I’m hoping to provide some insight into the operation and ideas behind the athletics programs at Manitoba, Winnipeg and Brandon.

To do that, I’ve gotten the three athletic directors — Winnipeg’s Doran Reid, Manitoba’s Coleen Dufresne and Brandon’s Russ Paddock, who recently had the interim title removed and was named the school’s permanent AD — to provide me a bit of their time to talk about a number of topics related to their programs, the Canada West conference and the CIS as a whole.

With CIS meetings set for Ottawa next week, it is a good time to touch base with the people who are the decision makers for the province’s three schools and get their opinions and insights on the direction of university athletics in Manitoba and Canada.

So, here’s how the schedule looks:

Wednesday: Doran Reid. Topics: The expansion of UW’s athletics programs; status and necessity of the new fieldhouse on campus; life as a small school trying to get bigger. (That podcast is now online and can be heard here.)

Friday: Coleen Dufresne. Topics: The challenges of managing a department with 13 programs; the financial realities for a school with a football team and two hockey teams; the perspective of the biggest school in the province as it relates to Canada West expansion and/or realignment.

Monday: Russ Paddock. Topics: A brand new role for the school’s men’s volleyball coach; juggling AD duties as well as though of a coach and teacher; Brandon’s place in the future of the Canada West; update on the move to a new facility for September.

I hope you’ll tune in for each.

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Twitter: @LarkinsWSun

Earlier today I posted my own bracket for how I thought the CIS men’s basketball seedings were going to play out and, when they were officially announced around dinner hour Central time, there were a few things done differently than what I had predicted.

First off, as I broke down yesterday, the biggest question mark was going to be whether the at-large berth went to Lakehead or Saskatchewan and, in the end — rightly so, the Thunderwolves got the lone wild card.

Another thing happened today that created a ripple effect and that was Acadia beating St. Francis Xavier in the AUS final, meaning you had to now figure out the merits of winning a conference for a team that wasn’t ranked all season and then what to do about X, which was a slight favourite heading into that game. In the end, Acadia’s win apparently did nothing for the Axemen, who won Sunday but still got slotted last. The AU win, however, did juggle some things in the middle of the lineup. Had St. FX won, you could have made an argument for the X-Men to move as high as No. 3 and that, in turn, would have pushed some teams down a spot.

Because of the small number of teams involved combined with a couple of CIS regulations (you can’t play in your conference in first round; when only two teams from a conference are represented, they are to be placed in opposite brackets), there isn’t a lot of flexibility with moving teams around. For instance, Ryerson is probably most deserving of the 8-seed, but with Carleton an absolute no-brainer 1-seed, the Rams can’t fall there. I have no problem with that.

The most curious decision for me, however, is vaulting Concordia to a 3-seed, which is essentially an eight-spot bump from where the Stingers were a week ago. A pretty lofty status for a team that beat only one plus-.500 team outside its conference all season (Ottawa) and finished 3-4 against teams with plus-.500 records. As you can see from the boys at The CIS Blog, neither I nor eight others had Concordia going that high.

It’s important to note that the at-large selection and the seeding as well are based on a body of work and not by something as simple as “this team lost to a better team.” If that were the case, then Saskatchewan would be dancing and the Former Nor’Westers would be finding something else to do in Thunder Bay this weekend.

The other team that won’t like its situation is Acadia, which has as its reward for winning a conference championship a date with the biggest CIS juggernaut of the 21st century. Yet, you’d be hard-pressed to make an argument for Acadia going any higher than eight, when you factor in Ryerson can’t drop and the fact that St. FX finished ahead of AU in the standings and was in the rankings all year. But if you can justify moving Concordia up seven spots to three, then the Axemen might be sitting there saying ‘why not us?’.

Concordia’s move also affected Lakehead, which I had in the three spot using a logic that, had X and LU both lost in regular season play, would the T-Wolves have dropped much more than a spot in the rankings? Maybe. Maybe not.

• • •

A quick rant, if I may.

Sources confirmed to me that not only were Lakehead and Saskatchewan the applicants for the at-large (no-brainers there), but Victoria also applied despite not winning a game at final four and finishing 2-3 in the post-season. Victoria is more than welcome to apply for the at-large berth — as are Thompson Rivers, Queen’s and Dalhousie, for all I care — but it’s similar to me applying to be the Lakers beat reporter at the L.A. Times right now. Sure, theoretically I could get it but I’m not packing my bags betting on it.

So my struggle is this: If the CIS has nine criteria that it uses to determine the at-large, why is the process every year debated and waited on? This isn’t the NCAA, where there’s plenty of teams trying to get off the bubble and it’s up to an entire committee to weigh many criteria cross-analyzed with many teams. It’s a cut and dry process that says Team A has the advantage in this many criteria and Team B has this many. A+B=C does it not? And yet the conference call features reps from each conference, plus the national coaches association president and it’s discussed and it takes more than two hours after the seedings and at-large call is complete to release the names.

When I see that there’s criteria for a selection, I question why more than one person even needs to be involved. One person can sit at their computer, crunch the numbers, add em up and tell us all who finished on top. Instead there’s this long process, discussion and secrecy all to grandly announce what anyone who looked at the criteria in the first place could have figured out.

I remember covering the Brandon Bobcats in 2008 when a similar situation took place. The Bobcats had finished 20-2 but failed to get a Canada West auto-berth and were thrown into the at-large pool with Acadia. The players and coaches convened on a Sunday afternoon at the gym and waited for the call to come through. Players sat on the gym floor and waited. The coaches holed themselves up in their office. And waited. I was there for reaction quotes, and so I waited too.

The players were on pins and needles hoping they still had more games to play and, while I empathized with the nervous times they were going through, I couldn’t help but think it was all an entirely pointless stress for them to go through. I couldn’t figure out what we were doing there. The numbers were stacked against Brandon. The math said it was Acadia’s wild card. The call eventually came, the players had to be notified that BU’s season was over and it was all based not on subjective opinion, but on indisputable, mathematical fact.

So what the hell was the point of this entire agonizing process?

Today Lakehead and Saskatchewan players all likely sat around waiting, feeling the same as the Bobcats did, and I still don’t know the answer to that question.

I have finalized MY bracket for the CIS men’s national basketball tournament just ahead of the announcement that will come later tonight. What you’re about to read affects absolutely nothing, it’s just one man’s breakdown of who I think should go where.

1. Carleton, OUA champs:

The argument: There isn’t one. Easiest pick to make.

2. Alberta, Canada West champs:

The argument: Won the Canada West on neutral floor; beat the hosts and No. 3-ranked Saskatchewan Huskies in semifinal upset No. 4 Fraser Valley in a close final. Ranked 7th in last ranking and ranked all 14 weeks.

3. Lakehead, at-large berth

The argument: Waiting to get the official announcement about the wild card, but my numbers all say Lakehead. Their loss to Ryerson in an OUA semifinal was not a good one, there’s no doubt about that, but their body of work over the season (No. 2 in last poll, 20-2 conference record) says they don’t deserve to take a big hit just because they’re a wild card.

4. Fraser Valley, Canada West runners-up.

The argument: Ranked every week, including as high as No. 4 the past four weeks and in the top five since Feb. 7. Beat a ranked team in Victoria in the semifinal and suffered a mere one-point loss in the conference final. They cannot move up to No. 3 because of a CIS rule that keeps teams from the same conference, when only two teams are in the tournament, on opposite sides of the bracket. So with Alberta being in the 2-3-6-7 bracket, UFV must be in the 1-4-5-8 bracket.

5. Concordia, Quebec champs

The argument: Not totally comfortable with putting the Stingers here based on their body of work, but they finished 14-2 in conference play, were ranked most of the season and should get credit for a conference title, even if it did come in the lowly RSEQ against a sub-.500 Quebec-Montreal team.

6. St. Francis Xavier, AUS runners-up

The argument: By pure merit, my gut would have been to move the X-Men to the 5 and put Concordia here but, as you’ll see in a moment, that would have conflicted with the aforementioned CIS rule. Finished 16-4 atop the AUS, beat Cape Breton in a semifinal. They were as high as No. 2 in the country and were top five in the CIS for the first nine weeks. They tumbled with three losses in five games — all on the road — in mid-January, but were sixth in the last coaches poll.

7. Ryerson, Ontario runners-up

The argument: Also an easy pick to slot. Ryerson can’t go in the 1-8 match-up because of a CIS rule that prohibits teams from the same conference playing in the first round. The Rams got a nice win over Lakehead, no one will question that. But it came on a neutral floor that wasn’t so neutral. Their RPI was 20th in the country and they finished the OUA East season at a pedestrian 13-9 and 18-13 overall.

8. Acadia, AUS champions:

The argument: Yes this looks low for a conference champion, but the Axemen’s run really only included a neutral-floor win over St. FX in terms of quality wins. They had to beat unranked Saint Mary’s (9-11, 14-19) in the semifinal after receiving a bye in the first round. They weren’t ranked at any point this season, getting as high as No. 11 in last week’s poll. You can’t really make a case for them, even as a conference champ, to go any higher than anyone else on the board, save for Ryerson. And while I might be inclined to move them to the 7 in a perfect world, the inflexibility of a couple of rules make this the only spot you can put them.

That’s how I see it. Of course, if the committee goes ahead and surprises me by picking Saskatchewan as the at-large, then you can delete this from your memory bank.

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Twitter: @LarkinsWSun

Officially (as of typing this), there are five teams there are seven teams who have their tickets booked for the CIS men’s basketball national tournament, but perhaps more intrigue looms over the two teams hoping for help.

Canada West finalists Fraser Valley and Alberta, OUA finalists Ryerson and Carleton, and AUS finalist St. Francis Xavier (Acadia will play in a semi later tonight), are all locked in as auto-berths to next weekend’s nationals in Halifax, while Quebec-Montreal and Concordia will play for the Q’s lone berth tonight.

(UPDATE: Acadia went on a 14-2 surge late in the game and knocked off Saint Mary’s 96-87 to earn its way into the AUS final and an auto-berth to nationals. In Quebec, Concordia earned the one conference berth by beating Quebec-Montreal.)

Not mentioned in that group of teams is No. 2 Lakehead and No. 3 Saskatchewan, both victims of semifinal upsets in their respective conference semifinals on Friday night and now the lone legitimate contenders for the one at-large berth to Halifax. Had St. FX lost, the X-Men would have been thrown in the mix as well, but now it’s just the Wolves and Dogs remaining to see who gets thrown the scraps.

Neither Lakehead nor Sask were particularly fun to watch on Friday, the Thunderwolves getting beat by 16 in Waterloo to a Ryerson team they had popped by 41 points back in November, while the Huskies made it 0-for-3 (in conference and playoff games) this season against Alberta, losing by 16 on their home floor no less.

Yet “quality of loss” or the location of that loss is of little regard when the CIS decides on Sunday who will get the at-large berth. As you can see from this PDF on the CIS’ regulations, there are a handful of criteria that go in to deciding which team will win the wild card, making this more scientific than subjective.

So let’s look at how it breaks down. And please remember this is very much unofficial and just a guide:

1. Conference record

Pretty straightforward here. Lakehead finished 20-2, Saskatchewan 16-4. Lakehead.

2. Games vs other teams already qualified for nationals

Lakehead went 1-1 against Ryerson (including Friday), 0-1 against Carleton. Saskatchewan went 4-3 , which included two wins over Acadia. Saskatchewan.

3. Games vs non-conference opponents

Lakehead went 9-0 in games against the Q and Canada West, while Saskatchewan was 4-1, with an early home loss to Windsor as the blemish. Lakehead.

4. Best five weeks in top 10

Lakehead has spent the past seven weeks at No. 2, while Saskatchewan spent the past four weeks as the No. 3 team and, prior to that, was at No. 4. Lakehead.

5. Games vs teams with +.800 winning percentage

Lakehead’s loss to Carleton is the only game that plays in to this criteria. Saskatchewan.

6. Games vs teams with +.650 winning percentage

Including Acadia results, Saskatchewan went 5-5, while Lakehead 5-2, all in-conference. Lakehead.

7. Games vs teams with +.500 winning percentage

Saskatchewan finishes this 8-5, while Lakehead is 7-3, with a win over McGill thrown in. Lakehead.

8. Games vs teams with sub-.500 records

Neither team lost to anyone with a losing record this season, with Saskatchewan going 11-0 (only one of those out of conference), and Lakehead finishing 21-0,  including eight non-conference wins in that category. Lakehead.

9. Playoff performance

Both teams lost in their one-game conference semifinals. Saskatchewan advanced to Canada West final four by sweeping Trinity Western in a best-of-three quarter-final in Saskatoon, while Lakehead beat Guelph in a one-game quarter-final in Thunder Bay. By percentage, Saskatchewan’s mark is better at 2-1 vs. 1-1. Saskatchewan.

So that’s how I see it. Lakehead has six of the nine categories in its favour, with Saskatchewan holding two, and one still to be officially determined holding three. And that’s why I think you’ll see the Thunderwolves in Halifax next weekend.

–A few quick-hitters from a busy Friday night around the CIS as playoffs continue to progress in basketball, hockey and volleyball.

VOLLEYBALL

— Libero Derek Nieroda tied a Canada West record for digs in a match with 30 and the Manitoba Bisons men’s team opened the national tournament by escaping with a five-set win over the Western Mustangs in a quarter-final in Kingston, Ont. The No. 2-ranked Bisons advanced to take on the third seed, and Quebec champion, Laval Rouge et Or on Saturday (5 p.m. CT). The Mustangs, who scored the first  three points of the fifth set, staved off five match points before the Bisons got the winning point on a Western attack error. The Bisons committed only one attack error in the fifth and hit .524 with 12 kills in the frame.  Garrett May had an impressive 26 kills and 11 digs in a losing cause, while former Winnipegger Matt Poulin notched 12 and 11 for WU.

— The Canada West went 2-2 on Day 1, with the Alberta Golden Bears the victims of a minor upset at the hands of tournament host No. 5-ranked Queen’s. Meanwhile, Laval knocked off sixth-ranked Calgary leaving U of M and Trinity Western, the top seed that dismantled No. 8 Dalhousie in three sets, as the remaining CW teams on the championship side of the draw.

— In the women’s tournament in Hamilton, Ont., two of the three Canada West teams in attendance won their games, with No. 1 Alberta knocking off the eighth-ranked host McMaster Marauders, and No. 2 UBC cruising to a straight-sets win over Queen’s as the T-Birds seek their fifth straight national title. No. 6 Trinity Western, which finished third at the Canada West final four last weekend in Vancouver, was knocked out in a four-set loss to Montreal, the Quebec champion.  Montreal and UBC meet in one semifinal while Alberta gets McGill in the other.

Trinity Western: East Selkirk’s Amy Lescheid had 10 kills and 10 digs, Winnipeg’s Nicole Bazin notched five kills and fellow Winnipegger Chelsea Hudson tallied 37 assists for the Spartans.

UBC: Brandon’s Lisa Barclay had five kills and six digs.

McMaster: Winnipeg’s Camilla Thorne-Tjomsland appeared in two sets for the Marauders but did not register a point.

Saint Mary’s: Former Winnipeg Wesmen outside Ariel Smith struggled to amass six kills on 44 swings in the Huskies’ five-set loss to the McGill Martlets.

BASKETBALL

— Behind 24 points, nine rebounds and seven assists from Jordan Baker, the Alberta Golden Bears upset the Saskatchewan Huskies 89-73 in a Canada West semifinal in Saskatoon, giving the Bears a place in the national tournament next week, a spot in the Canada West final Saturday and muddying the waters for the national wild-card all at the same time. Winnipeg’s Peter Lomuro had 12 points for the Huskies, who will not get one of the two Canada West auto-berths to nationals next week and now must hope for the lone at-large bid to the tournament in Halifax.

— Former Brandon head coach, and Wesmen assistant, Barnaby Craddock is leading a team back to nationals for the first time since he took the Bobcats to the national final in 2007. His Fraser Valley Cascades earned their first ever nationals berth with a 63-62 win over the Victoria Vikes in the other Canada West semifinal. The Cascades led by as many as 25 in the second half — and 21 in the fourth quarter — but went without a basket for the final 5:26 of the game as the Vikes outscored UFV 24-6 in the final 10 minutes. Winnipeg’s Mike James went 4-for-4 and had nine points and seven rebounds in 17 minutes off the bench for the Cascades.

— In Ontario, the Ryerson Rams earned their first nationals berth by shocking the No. 2-ranked Lakehead Thunderwolves in an OUA semifinal in Waterloo. Carleton beat McMaster 80-56 in the other semifinal. With Ontario getting two berths, Lakehead is now thrown in the wild-card mix with No. 3-ranked Saskatchewan. Earlier this week, Mark Wacyk at CIShoops.com nicely painted the at-large picture and it’s currently a three-horse race by his projections. The CIS has a number of criteria for the at-large bid and you can read them here (PDF). Lakehead, which has Winnipeg freshmen J.R. Alexander, Joey Nitychoruk and Michael Thorn-Finch (redshirt) on the roster, would appear to have the inside track on the berth but would feel a lot better about it if St. Francis Xavier went ahead and won the AUS tournament this weekend so as to eliminate the X-Men from the at-large pool.

— On the women’s side, the Regina Cougars continued their dominance in the Canada West, beating the Cascades 72-56 in a semifinal. The No. 1-ranked Cougars, who went 20-0 in conference play, advanced to play the UBC Thunderbirds in Saturday’s final after the T-Birds took care of Saskatchewan 72-55 in the other semi. Cougars head coach Dave Taylor humbly tweeted after the game: ”In last 10 years this is our 7th CanWest Final appearance and my 5th straight as a coach. Oh yeah, I am 0fer and we are 1-5 in final.”

I think that ends Saturday, however.

— The Nos. 2 and 3 teams out of Canada West are still alive for a berth to nationals, but have to go the long way because of the different format for the women’s tournament. Saturday’s winner will get an automatic berth into nationals while two Canada West teams will advance to one of two four-team regionals (in Ottawa and Saskatoon), from which the two regional winners will earn berths to the national tournament.

— In Ontario, defending national champion Windsor gets Ottawa in the conference final tomorrow. Meanwhile, St. FX-Acadia and Dalhousie-Cape Breton are the semifinals Saturday in the AUS.

HOCKEY

— The Calgary Dinos stole Game 1 of the best-of-three Canada West semifinal at the Max Bell, defeating first-place Manitoba 2-1. Jared Walker had the lone goal for the Bisons, who will try to stay alive Saturday night in Game 2.

— Winnipeg’s Johnny Lazo scored a hat trick and the Alberta Golden Bears pumped the Saskatchewan Huskies 7-3 in Game 1 of their semifinal. Only one team from Canada West will advance to the six-team University Cup tournament later this month.

— In the AUS, Moncton leads its best-of-five series with Saint Mary’s 2-1, with Game 4 tonight in New Brunswick.

— Western, which has Winnipegger Adam Stoykewich on the roster, beat Windsor 5-2 Friday to tie the best-of-three OUA West final at 1-1. Game 3 goes Sunday in London. In the OUA East, the McGill Redmen will try to finish off the UQTR Patriotes in Game 2 of their series Saturday.

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Twitter: @LarkinsWSun

The CIS handed down a penalty of forfeiture Thursday on the York women’s volleyball team after the school self-disclosed on a player eligibility violation from last week.

The No. 9-ranked Lions, who cruised to a 16-2 record in OUA conference play and were to host the conference final four after sweeping the RMC Paladins on the weekend, are instead in the position of appealing the CIS ruling and watching a dream season washed out by, what appears to be, a completely unnecessary decision by the team.

Through a bit of digging today, I learned that the player in question was 6-foot middle blocker Michelle Pierce, a transfer from the Windsor Lancers who was required to sit out, per CIS rules, 365 days since playing her last match at Windsor. Pierce did that. However, in dressing in the quarter-final on the weekend against RMC (a team that went 9-9 and finished eighth in a conference that is light on quality teams), Pierce was ineligible because she had not dressed and played in a conference match this season for York.

Pierce, who had 143 kills and 156 digs for the Lancers in 2010-11, would no doubt be a boost to the Lions’ roster, but their decision to dress her — even if we ignore the rules for a moment — makes little to no sense. Here’s a team that won 16 of 18 matches, was ranked for nine weeks in the national top 10, and had two conference all-stars and a coach of the year (Nick Tran) to its credit — all without Pierce in the lineup. At best, Pierce would have given the Lions six matches — OUA quarter-final, semi and final, plus maximum three matches at nationals — and that would have exhausted a full year of eligibility. If this is November, then you add her to the mix without question. But it’s February and this isn’t pro sports where you boost your roster at the trade deadline. In assessing risk-reward, it’s foolish to suggest that six matches from one player is worth a full year of eligibility, especially on a team that had done well enough without the player.

Now, when you consider the actual violation of the rules, it makes the decision even more head-scratching. Everyone who follows the CIS is well aware of the 365 Rule, a basic law that governs over players transferring from an NCAA or CIS school to another CIS school. So while the Lions obviously knew Pierce’s eligibility date, to me it’s unfathomable that they could not have delved further into the CIS bylaws to make utterly sure that they were in the right when deciding to play her. With everything on the line, why would a call to the OUA or CIS (which I am only assuming did not happen) not have been placed to double- and triple-check her eligibility?

It’s clear that there was no attempt by York to circumvent the rules here. After all, the Lions made no secret of Pierce’s appearance, announcing in the post-game press release: “Middle blocker Michelle Pierce (Windsor, Ont.), making her debut for the Lions after sitting out the regular season following a transfer from the University of Windsor, finished with a game-high 12 points on nine kills, two blocks and one service ace.”

So it appears to just have been a terrible error, but a completely unthinkable one nevertheless. The Lions, who would have been a prohibitive favourite to represent the OUA at nationals, instead have to hope an appeal goes their way. While the sympathetic might suggest that York would have earned its way into final four without Pierce (and be absolutely correct), it would be surprising to see the CIS go back on a ruling as serious as this, and set a precedent in the process.

It is a disastrous turn of events for the Lions and seniors Dayna Herold and Claire Leewing — who have now unexpectedly played their final matches — for something that not only could have been avoided easily but likely should never have happened in the first place.