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In the postseason for the second consecutive year, the University of Regina's men's basketball team travels east this weekend for a best-of-three Canada West play-in series against the Manitoba Bisons.

The series kicks off with Game 1 on Thursday night with Game 2 scheduled for Friday night. If it's needed, a third and deciding game will be played on Saturday night. All three games have a 7:30 p.m. scheduled start time at the U of M's Investors Group Athletic Centre.

The winner of the Regina/Manitoba series will advance to the conference quarterfinals, where they'll take on No. 2-ranked UBC (19-1) for the right to move on to the Canada West Final Four.

The Cougars are coming off a weekend sweep against Thompson Rivers which clinched a postseason berth for the U of R. They were full value for an impressive 81-54 win on Friday night, then held off TRU for an exciting 79-74 victory on Saturday. Brian Ofori continued his run of strong play for the Cougars with 38 points, 17 rebounds, six blocks, four assists, and four steals in the team's two wins over the WolfPack. He's averaging 18 points and 8.4 rebounds per contest over the last five games and is shooting 59% from the field, including 9-for-20 from three-point range.

Alex Igual, Brandon Tull, Ofori, and Johneil Johnson all average in excess of 10 points per game for the Cougars. Igual leads the team with 14.7 points per game and also had a team-leading 62 assists during Canada West play, while Tull averages 13.5 points per game. Igual, Tull, Travis Sylvestre, rookie Benjamin Hillis, and Ofori make up the usual starting five for fourth-year head coach Steve Burrows. One of the top rookies in the nation, Johnson is averaging over 21 minutes per game off the bench and scored 12.2 points per game in his first Canada West season. Samuel Hillis, Matthew Augustine, and Carter Millar also play key roles off the bench for the U of R.

The Cougars will be looking for revenge this weekend after dropping two close games in Regina last month, as the Bisons took 93-81 and 84-75 victories over the U of R on Jan. 13 and Jan. 14. Justus Alleyn piled up 43 points for Manitoba in those two wins and finished the Canada West schedule as the Bisons' leading scorer with 17.4 points per game. Like Regina, Manitoba has four players averaging in double figures as A.J. Basi (13.6 points per game), Keith Omoerah (13.2), and Ilarion Bonhomme (12.1) all average in excess of 10 per contest. Omoerah also ranks fifth in the conference in rebounding with an average of 8.7 boards per game.

The Cougars have a 7-6 historical edge over Manitoba in the 13 postseason games the two teams have played, with each team winning two of the four best-of-three series they've contested. Three of those four series took the full three games to settle, and the previous two series were both won by the road team – Manitoba won a Great Plains Athletic Conference semifinal series in 1999 in Regina, but the Cougars replied five years later with a Great Plains Division semifinal win in Winnipeg. This weekend's series will mark the first postseason meeting between the Cougars and Manitoba since that 2004 series.

Cougars/Manitoba Postseason History
1986 GPAC semifinal – Manitoba 103, Regina 77
1987 GPAC third-place game – Regina 90, Manitoba 81
1991 GPAC semifinal – Manitoba 2, Regina 1 (best-of-three series)
1996 GPAC semifinal – Regina 2, Manitoba 0 (best-of-three series)
1999 GPAC semifinal – Manitoba 2, Regina 1 (best-of-three series)
2004 Great Plains Division semifinal – Regina 2, Manitoba 1 (best-of-three series)