The University of Regina's men's basketball team opened Canada West play with a convincing 104-75 road win over Brandon on Friday night at BU's Healthy Living Centre.
 
Brandon Tull led the way with 21 points for the Cougars, while Jonathan Tull and Alex Igual both had double-doubles. Jonathan Tull finished with 19 points and 10 rebounds, while Igual had 12 points and 14 rebounds to go along with a game-high six assists. Will Tallman also hit double figures, finishing with 13 points.
 
The Cougars also received several key contributions from their non-starters as they finished with a total of 33 bench points. Mike Malecha, Brian Ofori, and Travis Sylvestre each had eight points, while Aaron McGowan scored six and rookie Samuel Hillis had three points in his Canada West debut.
 
The game also marked the first conference game in a U of R uniform for Brandon product Stephen Shields and Simon Fraser transfer Gurkirat Kular.
 
Chris Stanhope led all scorers with 23 points for Brandon (0-1).
 
The Cougars never trailed in the win, opening the game with back-to-back triples by Igual. And the game was only tied once, at 14-14 after a dunk by Brandon's D.J. Jordan midway through the first – but the Cougars quickly responded with a 7-0 run to take the lead for good. The U of R led 24-16 after one and held a 50-43 advantage at the break, but Tallman sparked a quick 8-0 run to push the lead all the way up to 15 early in the third.
 
The Cougars removed any hope of a Brandon comeback with a 10-0 run in the fourth that was punctuated by a massive one-handed dunk by Ofori off a nice feed from Brandon Tull. That put the U of R up by 21 and the Cougars were able to coast down the stretch for their first Canada West win of the season.
 
The two teams will meet again on Saturday night in Brandon (7:00, canadawest.tv).
 
NOTES: Friday marked the first time since the 2009-10 season that the Cougars won their first road game of the Canada West schedule ... a win tomorrow would give the Cougars two wins in their first two conference road games, something that hasn't happened since the 2005-06 campaign.