Addition by subtraction
Zafir Nagji, Sports Editor
The 2024-25 men’s basketball season was a weird one for the MRU Cougars. On one hand, the team was celebrating its final year with Keivonte Watts, one of the most prolific players in the program’s history, who holds many of the school’s all-time records. On the other hand, the team was welcoming in a fresh, first-year head coach – Josh Mullen – and a slew of new faces on the roster to go along with him.
The Cougars fought every single game of the season and ended with a 10-10 record, sneaking them into the Canada West Play-In Game against the University of Winnipeg Wesmen. Watts averaged 20 points per game for a second straight season and scored 22 points in the most important game of the season. The Cougars even held a fourth-quarter lead against the Wesmen, but in the late stages of the game, Winnipeg’s shot-making outlasted MRU’s, and the Wesmen defeated the Cougars by an 86-74 scoreline.
Mullen saw the season as a learning experience and was proud of how his team handled their season.
“It was a great learning opportunity for us to get to the playoffs, play a national-level team, and just all the bumps and adversity you face throughout the season,” Mullen says.
“We handled it well, we learned some lessons, and we made some mistakes as well, and I think you learn a lot from mistakes just as much as you do your successes.”
Questions were raised about the state of the Cougars coming into 2025-26. Who would they be able to recruit? Would this be a rebuilding year? Who was going to be the point guard and lead this offence forward?
With a 5-3 record as of Nov. 15, the Cougars have already answered every question about their team and are a dark horse contender in this year’s Canada West men’s basketball season.
Dunking on their critics
Despite ranking ninth in the preseason Canada West Coaches Poll, the Cougars hold the third-best record in their division and are on pace to qualify for this year’s Canada West Playoffs. They’ve shown an adept ability to share the wealth, receiving contributions from just about every player who touches the court and playing disciplined, defensive, physical basketball every week.
In their first weekend, MRU kept pace with the University of Alberta Golden Bears, one of the elite teams in Canada West, and even held a late lead in the second bout of their two-game series. Even though they lost both games, Mullen once again adopted a student-of-the-game mentality and chalked up the losses to “growing pains.”
“We’re a new group and so for us, we’re kind of finding our footing,” Mullen says. “I thought there were two evenly matched teams, and when that’s the case, it’s going to be hard-fought battles right to the end. Obviously, the Saturday game in particular is one we’d love to have back, but that’s part of it, and we’ll learn from it and grow from it.”
Getting the ball rolling
Clearly, Mullen’s thoughts translated as the Cougars won four of their next five games since those losses. Anchoring the team as captain is fourth-year veteran forward Sam Barnie, who credits their young core for their early success in the season.
“I really like all the young guys, it’s great having a super high energy on the team,” Barnie says. “These guys come to the gym every day, they don’t need to stretch or warm up, they just get straight to it.”
“We don’t like to treat them like first-years or rookies because they’re really high-impact players right away. They’re already ready to go and play at the university level.”
One young player that Barnie has taken under his wing is local phenom Jacob McLellan. After winning multiple city and provincial championships at St. Mary’s High School, the six-foot-three guard has shown himself to be offensively overpowering, defensively dominant and credibly coachable.
In the team’s two home wins against Saskatchewan, shut down Dylan Miller, one of the conference’s most lethal shooters. Coming into the weekend, Miller had made nine of his 14 attempts from downtown and even made three long-range shots in a row before took the defensive assignment. The Calgary superstar didn’t just reduce his output – Miller did not score a single point against , who even managed to stay out of foul trouble in both games and played in the closing moments of both games.
McLellan credits Barnie for making him feel comfortable in his first year at the U SPORTS level as he averages 10 points per game – third-most on the team.
“Sam took me for dinner when I was recruited and all that, he’s definitely shown me the ropes and helped me figure out the facility,” McLellan says. “He helps me keep my head up if I’m not shooting well, and if I mess up one play, he shows me how to fix it on the next, so I appreciate that a lot.”
Skyscraping centre Daniel Owoeye also enters veteran status this year. Standing at six feet, six inches tall, Owoeye was instrumental in the team’s home-opening back-to-back wins against the University of Saskatchewan Huskies, guarding ferocious rebounder Easton Thimme and limiting him to just 10 rebounds in the two matches combined – much lower than the 13 boards per game he averaged coming into the weekend. However, he knows that this team will go as far as its guards take them.
“We got some tough players that came in this past season, they’re coming in, they’re making good shots, they’re hard players, and they have grit in them,” Owoeye says. “That’s what we need out of our guards, especially because as bigs, our job is to feed the guards.”
“We’re here to grab boards and take it back up, and if it’s not going back up, we’re feeding the guards 24/7. All we’re going to do is just keep feeding the guards and let them hit their shots.”
Jose Miguel Alba Gabaldon is another highlight recruit of this team and brings some Spanish spice to the guard rotation. A top-30 prospect out of Spain, Alba averaged 16 points per game in the Spanish Championship on his way to being named Andalucia Finals MVP, scoring 35 points to win the regional championship. With three city championships to his name as well, the six-foot-one two-way talent is already learning so much from his vets.
“[The veterans] help us with their experience, they’ve played a lot of seasons here,” Alba says. “They try to help the rookies to integrate into the group, and when we make a mistake, they always help us… I’m really grateful to hear their advice.”
Elevating standards
Starting point guard Kole Scott has taken the reins of the offence and leads the team in scoring, averaging 11.7 points per game with his vastly improved three-point shot. Despite all of the questions coming into the season about MRU, Scott believes the rest of the conference is underestimating just how capable this Cougars squad truly is in Canada West.
“A Canada West Championship is always the goal, and I feel like we come and work hard every day to achieve that,” Scott says. “We just want to take the right steps to get there.”
The Cougars will be at home for the majority of the fall semester, playing on the newly renovated Kenyon Court on Friday and Saturday nights. All games are available to watch on Canada West TV, and tickets for all home games are free for students.
