Jefferson Hagen, MacEwan Athletics
EDMONTON – In what almost feels like a #TBT moment, remember when the MacEwan Griffins women's basketball team knocked off the then-No. 1-ranked Calgary Dinos?
Nov. 5. Almost ancient history now.
They played again a night later and the Griffins haven't seen the floor since due to a regional scheduling format with bye weekends built in to account for potential COVID rescheduling.
The rare three-week break from competition – which will finally end this weekend when MacEwan visits Lethbridge on Friday (6 p.m.) and Saturday (5 p.m., both Canada West TV presented by Co-op) – allowed the Griffins extra preparation they normally wouldn't have been afforded.
"It certainly presents some challenges because you wonder how game ready you are without having actually competed," said head coach Katherine Adams. "But it's also given us an opportunity to do some things that in previous years we haven't had the chance to do because you just go from one opponent to the next to the next without a break.
"We're finding some things on our end with our systems and our structure, putting a few new things in to provide different looks and take advantage of our strengths. It's given us the time to really refine that stuff, implement that stuff and be fresh coming into the weekend."
On the other side of the coin, the Griffins had built a nice amount of momentum after splitting their home-opening weekend with Calgary (currently ranked ninth in U SPORTS, but No. 1 at the time) with a 71-68 win on the Friday and a 71-64 loss on Saturday.
Can they recapture that three weeks later? Adams believes they haven't missed a beat.
"The good thing about it is we certainly had momentum and we've been able to maintain that," said Adams. "I can tell you we're hungry and excited to compete. We're ready to go play.
"Fortunately, we've been able to maintain and hold onto that over three weeks of training. But it's also given us a chance to rest and be fresh with that energy coming into a new weekend."
At 2-4, Lethbridge sits just ahead of MacEwan (1-3) in the standings. Both sides bring lots of experience into the weekend series.
"The focus really is on us and playing to our strengths," said Adams. "Lethbridge is one of the more veteran teams in our conference. So that experience factor comes in. We are also a veteran team now with a lot of fourth-year players. So, I think it's going to be a lot about execution and adapting to play styles, and … how well we're able to adjust on the fly what they throw at us."