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The University of Regina's men's basketball team kicks off the 2016-17 Canada West schedule at the Centre for Kinesiology, Health & Sport this weekend with games against Victoria on Friday and Saturday night.
 
Both games have a scheduled start time of 8 p.m.
 
Head coach Steve Burrows compiled a difficult non-conference slate which saw his Cougars play all 12 games either on the road or at neutral-site tournaments. They were slow out of the gate with six straight losses, but have gone 4-2 since then and are coming off a 74-72 neutral-site win over an Alberta team that was predicted to finish third in the Canada West preseason coaches' poll.
 
The Cougars lose starters Jonathan Tull and Will Tallman from last year's roster, but have an experienced roster with at nine players in their third, fourth, or fifth years of U Sports eligibility. Four fifth-year players include Aaron McGowan, Stephen Shields, and Travis Sylvestre, while Matthew Augustine returns to the lineup after playing from 2012 to 2015 with the Cougars.
 
The team's talented trio of fourth-year players includes Alex Igual, Brian Ofori, and Brandon Tull, while former Barstow College teammates Ramiro Martinez and Kornel Tokolyi both have three seasons of eligibility remaining.
 
Second-year guard Samuel Hillis should be a lock to see a massive increase in playing time this year after averaging 5.7 minutes per game last year, while rookie Johneil Johnson has made an immediate impact for the Cougars coming out of prep school at the Combine Academy in Charlotte, N.C. The U of R's rookie class also includes three players from LeBoldus (Benjamin Hillis, Carter Millar, and Brayden Kuski) and one from Riffel (Kieran Hebert).
 
The preseason coaches' poll put Victoria at No. 7 and Regina at No. 9, so this weekend will be a battle between two teams expected to finish near each other in the Canada West standings. The teams also opened up non-conference play against each other, with Victoria claiming a 76-67 win over the Cougars back on Sept. 29 at the Guy Vetrie Tournament at Victoria.
 
Victoria won five of its eight non-conference games against U Sports competition, also registering a win over Western, a win over Laval, and a pair of wins over Mount Royal last weekend. Fifth-year swingman Grant Sitton has led Victoria in scoring for five consecutive games.