As the men’s basketball season has come and gone for a multitude of different teams in the Canadian Colleges Athletic Association (CCAA), for eight teams the real season is about to begin.
The men’s national basketball championship will be held March 17-19 at Durham College in Oshawa, Ont.

 “This is my first trip to nationals so
everything is brand new now and it’s new for everybody, none of these guys have been there before,” said Mike Hansen, the men’s basketball coach.
The Lethbridge College Kodiaks are among the participants of the tournament and will open it against the defending champions, University of Northern British Columbia Timberwolves.
Both teams had very notable seasons that saw the Timberwolves finish the regular season with a record of 16-2 while the Kodiaks were just as impressive with a 17-1 mark.
The Timberwolves are the fourth-ranked team heading into the tournament while the Kodiaks are No. 5. The Timberwolves fell just short in their attempt to capture the British Columbia Colleges’ Athletic Association championship by losing 96-90 to the country’s top-ranked team from Vancouver Island.
The 93-66 loss for the Kodiaks in the championship game of the Alberta Colleges Athletic Conference finals to the NAIT Ooks saw the team drop in the CCAA team rankings.
The Kodiaks occupied the second spot in the country, but following the loss to the Ooks, the team found itself as the fifth seed heading into the national tournament.
The other teams in the tournament include Vancouver Island University (1), NAIT (2), Humber College (3), Mount Saint Vincent University (6), Vanier College (7) and the host team from Durham College.
“The biggest thing right now is we are trying to get people healthy. We have a lot of players injured, we’ve had strep throat go through the team and so right now we have to play through that and just take one game at a time.
“We found out that we were going to nationals last week so we have had six practices over the last week and a half. Not a lot of time, but I guess you could say we’ve had 95 practices this year in preparation for this weekend,” said Hansen.
The Kodiaks play the Timberwolves on Thursday evening at 4 p.m. MST.
The games can been seen online at
www.ccaamensbasketball2011.ca.