BRANDON, MB – In 1995-96 Brandon University Men’s basketball team capped a spectacular season by winning their fourth National Championship. Now in 2009, that team will be honoured as they are inducted into the Manitoba Basketball Hall of Fame.
Coached by Jerry Hemmings, the 1995-96 team roared through the Great Plains Athletic Conference with a 17-2 record. At the National Championships in Halifax, the Bobcats played with determination, poise and confidence as they defeated the Acadia Axemen and the University of Toronto Blues. In the championship game, they knocked off the defending champion, University of Alberta Golden Bears, en route to the Bobcats fourth National Championship.
“It was a championship game of great plays,” says Hemmings. “We don’t win if Shawn Gray does not make a great block on Alberta’s Greg Devries break-away layup. Euan Roberts hits a baseline runner with the shot clock expiring and anyone that knows CIS basketball history still raves about Demetrius Floyd’s put-back dunk with less than two minutes to play.”
Floyd’s dunk was named the “TSN Turning Point” during the nationally televised broadcast of the game. Those great plays combined with clutch free throw shooting by Jason Scott, Wayne Taylor and Roger Martin garnered Brandon’s fourth National Championship in nine years.
In the final game, the Bobcats had six players score in double figures with Crocus Plains’ Scott leading the way with 16 points. Current men’s Bobcat head coach Keith Vassell was named Tournament MVP and defensive standout Gray was selected as a tournament All-Star.
After the game, the team also went on to win in the classroom. Sixteen of the 19 players on the 1995-96 team earned their degrees and nine players earned a second degree in education. Four players went on to earn Masters degrees.
The Bobcat team will be inducted along with former Bobcat and All-Canadian Jerry Abernathy in Winnipeg on Saturday, October 3, 2009. The Manitoba Basketball Hall of Fame dinner will take place at the Victoria Inn and is scheduled to start at 6 p.m.
For more information on Brandon University Bobcats Athletics, please visit: www.gobobcats.ca or call 727-7375.
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For more information, or to arrange interviews, please contact:
- Jerry Hemmings
- Basketball Coach Emeritus
- Brandon University
- P: (204) 573-7965
- Kirk De Fazio
- Athletics Director
- Brandon University
- P: (204) 727-7405
- defaziok@brandonu.ca
Contact
- Brandon University
- communications@brandonu.ca
To receive any BU publication in an alternate format please contact Communications@BrandonU.ca
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