The Bandits went as far as they could with an incumbent core that had been their backbone for years. This season, it's time to try something new.
Centre Nick Ward returns to bang bodies and dunks in the paint. He led the Bandits in scoring and the league in field goal percentage last season.
Parting is such sweet sorrow. Thanks for the memories, but the time has come to forge a new path.
The Vancouver Bandits had a core of players who’d formed the backbone of the club for multiple years in a league known for transience. Try as they may, they could never get over the hump to be a champion. A championship game loss in the COVID bubble of 2020. Two semifinals losses in 2021 and 2023, sandwiched around a play-in round defeat.
Players like Alex Campbell, Malcolm Duvivier, Marek Klassen and Shane Gibson had become synonymous with the Bandits way, even back when they were the Fraser Valley Bandits, but now they’re more likely to be anonymous to the team’s faithful.
Campbell is now a member of the Winnipeg Sea Bears; Duvivier, a four-year Bandit, is now suiting up for the Calgary Surge; Gibson went to the Edmonton Stingers midway through last season and was last seen hooping in the Arabian Desert for Iraqi club Al-Naft.
The 2023 team didn’t live up to expectations in a year Vancouver hosted the CEBL championship, going 8-12 — their worst record since the inaugural season — and finished last in the Western Conference. They only made the playoffs as the host team, and while they played well down the stretch, saw Calgary’s Stefan Smith hit a pull-up three to end their season in the semifinals.
“When it comes to our roster last year, we tried to play a particular style and I thought that we were exceptionally close to being really really good,” said head coach Kyle Julius. “We wanted to be really tough last year, and I think probably over-coached that group a little bit last year, X-and-O wise, trying to play a certain style.
“I think this year the idea is to let these guys be a little bit more free, let them be themselves a little bit more. We did go out and bring guys that I feel are nasty, want to get nasty, and can get nasty. We know in this league the more physical team wins. We know if you hit first in this league, you know good things will happen.
“We got some dogs here ... we got some toughness. Every year you have a puzzle and you try to put the pieces together. Last year we really wanted to play big and try to take advantage of that. As I said, we were close to being really effective. This year, I think we're gonna we want to kind of blend the two; the athleticism, speed, playing a little bit more free, with the size that we're returning.”
Wide-bodied, 6-foot-9 centre Nick Ward, the team’s leading scorer (18.7 ppg, 7.8 rpg) is one of the players Julius is counting on for snarl in the paint, along with Vancouver’s James Karnik, who returns to action after taking a year off to get healthy. Karnik was a force for the Bandits in 2022, averaging 16/8 in 10 games, his first as a professional since graduating from Boston College. He went on to play for the Czech national team after the season.
Other returnees from 2023 are Kur Jongkuch, Diego Maffia, and Duane Notice.
Guard Glen Yang, a Burnaby native, comes over from the Winnipeg Sea Bears, while Portland Trail Blazers guard Taze Moore will spend his summer in Vancouver as well. Zach Copeland and Koby McEwen are two more newcomers, as is forward Josip Vrankic, who will be a late arrival to the team as he's still playing for Gipuzkoa in Spain's LEB Oro.
One more local name — St. George’s grad Drew Urquhart, who played in the Bandits’ inaugural game in 2019 after his career at the University of Vermont.
Three university draftees this year are UBC's Adam Olsen, Western's Jerric Palma and Connor Platz, all B.C. products.
“Unfortunately, the team that we built is really good, so when you have really good players, there's some of them are still in Europe right now finishing their seasons and in the playoffs as we speak,” said Julius, pointing out they’ll be without up to six players until 72 hours before their first game.
“I think if you if you study the league and you see kind of what impacted winning and target time over the last couple of years, (it's) dynamic guards, speed, athleticism. We definitely wanted to add to that. I think a big thing was bringing players like Diego back, investing in guys that we see being with us for a long time.”
Maffia was a USports draft last year, and technically will be again, even after being announced as a standard player this year. He'll keep his university eligibility and return to the University of Victoria in the fall, to follow up on his USports MVP season of 2023.
"(The CEBL) is a great. It's a building block towards whoever wants to make that next jump and make that next level. For me, it's been a great success," he said. "When I went back (to UVic), the game felt a bit slower. I felt faster. I felt like I could beat my defender. I felt like it can make plays easier. I could just see the game in a different lens.
"I think, especially in the pro level, I learned that a lot can happen," he said of his biggest lesson learned as a rookie.
"A lot can change in a matter of a day. So you never know what tomorrow is gonna look like. So just staying ready, keep working, keep getting in the gym, getting your shots up, working out — all that. Just maintaining that positive mindset, I think goes a long way, because the sooner you start going down the rabbit hole, then things start getting messy."
Yang is making his own form of return. Born and raised in Burnaby, he moved to Hong Kong at a young age, then returned to Canada and settled in Calgary with his family. He started all 20 regular-season games for Winnipeg last year — even hitting an Elam Ending winner against the Bandits — and has experience playing in Europe, Asia and the Philippines.
"I've played in this league before, so and I've played in quite a few other leagues around the world, so I just want to bring a little bit of leadership, a little bit of toughness," said the 6-4 guard. "I felt like last year's (Bandits) team, they had a lot of talent, but they were just missing like one or two little pieces here or there. So I think this year's team, we can take that next step."
Urquhart was there for the first step the team took, way back in 2019 in the league's first season. He was there on May 9, 2019 when the Bandits lost 106-103 to the Saskatchewan Rattlers at the Abbotsford Centre.
But he stepped away from basketball to concentrate on his successful marketing business, though he kept close tabs on the Bandits — from the stands.
"It's been awesome," he said at training camp this week.
"And I remember the first game like it was yesterday. It was an electric gym. I'm glad (the LEC) is a little bit closer because the drive up to Abbotsford was a deep one," he added with a laugh.
"I've been a season-ticket holder for the last two years, and technically still this year as well. So I know this team and this league very well. It's been awesome to see it grow, especially from growing up in Kelowna, living in Vancouver, so to see a team in a league grow this way, it's been it's been awesome.
"I love that I'm going to be on the bench, on the court, and not in the seats. So I'm super excited. I think it's an absolute blessing. I'm gonna jump on it and play as hard and as well as I can."
The same goes for Karnik, who missed last year to focus on his health. A persistent knee tendinitis hampered his movement, another lingering injury in a series of them that taxed him mentally.
"That was a very mentally and physically challenging time for me," he said. "But I just really took that time to just get my body right, my mind right and I'm starting to see ... the fruits of my labour. My body's feeling the best it's ever felt. ... I can't stress this enough. It's so crazy, but this is like the best I felt — ever — in my basketball career. I really just spent a whole year just working on flexibility and working on strength training, isometrics and all that stuff. And honestly, my body's feeling the best it's ever felt. So what you can expect from me because of that is I probably the most explosive I've been in my life. I feel like every practice I'm dunking on somebody. ... My mindset is every game. I'm expecting at least one highlight for myself where I'm just dunking on somebody. That's just the type of energy I'm feeling, just my body's feeling."
James Karnik is ... feeling it.
The Bandits' season starts on May 23 against the Montreal Alliance, the first of their 10 home games this year. They play another 10 road games, including the regular-season finale vs. Montreal on July 28. All CEBL regular season games, including playoffs, will be livestreamed on TSN+, as well as the CEBL+, and on CEBL Mobile.
Julius is hoping their trip to Montreal is extended a little bit longer, with the Alliance hosting championship weekend starting on Aug. 2. The year, there's no automatic bye for Vancouver — it's Montreal's turn — and that's the way Julius likes it.
"I like this way better. ... Way better," he said. "I think last year that was a gift and a curse. There was lots of talk in the locker room about 'don't worry, we're good. We're already playing in the finals.' That's not how I personally want to approach the day and it was really difficult to kind of get that taste out of your mouth during the season last year.
"Our guys knew ... they're in the (semi)finals. Games aren't as important. And if you looked at look at our trajectory last year, we played really, really well towards the end of this year and I think that's when guys really got locked in.
"But we feel like we have a group now that's locked in right from the start. I think the urgency is better, knowing that you have to earn your way there. I don't really wish that (automatic berth) on any coach knowing that you're already in the finals. I think it's much better to have to get up every day, and really, truly earn it."
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