Mason Bourcier’s triple-double paced Langley’s Trinity Western University Spartans en route to 97-87 victory against the University of the Fraser Valley Cascades on Friday, Jan. 21, TWU’s third consecutive win.
Bourcier posted 15 points, 12 rebounds and 13 assists to record the first official triple-double in TWU program history and the 18th triple double in Canada West conference history.
The 6’4” fourth-year guard also tied TWU’s single-game assist record.
MBB I Mason, meet Tre.
— TWU Spartans (@TWUSpartans) January 22, 2022
This duo keeps connecting as the Spartans lead 51-39 at the half!
Stats:
Mason Bourcier - 9 PTS, 8 AST, 6 REB
Tre Fillmore - 12 PTS
Sam Dyck - 11 PTS, 4 REB#TWUBasketball x #EmbraceThePace pic.twitter.com/5ksoTAbTsF
Bourcier credited his fellow Spartans for making it possible.
“The way our team plays allows me to have a lot of freedom on both offence and defence,” Bourcier commented.
“Since we’re a smaller team, I get a lot of opportunities to get rebounds, and push the pace for us to have more possessions. The way our offence runs, and the way I play to my strengths, gives me a lot of opportunity to get assists and rebounds.”
TWU head coach Trevor Pridie said the team has “had some monster players in our last four games.”
“Q [Ja’Qualyn Gilbreath] is scoring really well, Mason is playing out of his mind, we have different guys stepping up too. Sam [Dyck] scored 15 off the bench tonight, running the floor on some massive plays, Andrew [Goertzen] was awesome, so it’s good to see that we’re playing team basketball. We had 26 assists tonight, so it’s not a one-man show.”
UFV head coach Joe Enevoldson said “you’re not going to stop a guy like Mason, but you’re going to try to slow him down as much as possible. We’ve got to keep him out of the paint, and that’s something I don’t think we did a good job of.”
READ ALSO: VIDEO: Langley’s Trinity Western University Spartans make it eight wins in a row
Triple-doubles are rare.
In the NBA, out of 72,798 games played, there have been only 1,242 triple-doubles, just 1.7 percent, where a player scored at least ten points in three of five categories in one game (points, rebounds, assists, steals and blocked shots).
Only 9.1 per cent of all NBA players have recorded a single triple-double, barely half notching more than one, and only 29 have more than 10.
Bourcier’s teammate Gilbreath achieved the same feat in the 2019-20 season against UBC, on Jan. 9, 2020, but it wasn’t counted after the university issued a statement revealing Gilbreath was not eligible to play, under a rule that states when a “student-athlete is not a Canadian citizen or does not have permanent resident status in Canada,” they are not allowed to play for “365 days from the date that the athlete last participated in the sport.”
It was described as an “administrative error.”
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