NPH CIS Team Previews: Thompson Rivers WolfPack
The WolfPack wants to do the best it can given the resources provided. Oh, and win the next game, always.
Thompson Rivers WolfPack
Head coach: Scott Clark 
Record in 2014: 11-9 (Third in Explorer division of Canada West Conference)
Playoffs: Conference quarterfinals
Points scored per game: 78.3
Points allowed per game: 74.5
Key players: Gerard Gore, Josh Wolfram, Reese Pribilsky
Key losses: Brett Parker, Tallon Milne, Brett Rouault
Schedule breakdown:
The Thompson Rivers WolfPack were a team of two halves a season ago: they alternated winning and losing streaks over the first half, then for the most part switched between winning and losing games.
“We did a really good job of handling the basketball,” head coach Scott Clark says, “I’d like to see us do that again.”
Traveling is a staple for each of the six teams of the Explorer division, and the WolfPack’s schedule breaks down into neat blocks of home and away games of four each. “Your mandate,” Clark says, “is to do the best job possible with the resources that are provided.”
Key games: VS Mount Royal Cougars, January 22 and 23
at UFV Cascades, February 12 and 13 
CBG’s take:
It’s not quite right to say that Thompson Rivers was the sixth, or the ninth, best team in the CIS a year ago; the WolfPack were 11-9, solid but not exceptional. But they did take the eventual fifth-ranked Saskatchewan Huskies, who won the CIS consolation final, to a third game in the Canada West quarterfinals.
So… Sixth-ranked TRU? That’s not how it works of course, and Scott Clark is the first to understand this; the team’s head coach is as pragmatic as they come. He tells NPH that you have to “look after those standards that are in your control.”
Clark also doesn’t bother playing up or down to perceptions of his team.
“I’m not the type of guy to try to convince anyone on anything,” he says. “We’re going to do the best job with the things that are under our control.”
What is under the team’s control is things like competing, showing up and playing and practicing hard every day on the court and the classroom.
Win the next game, as Clark preaches to his team, and things will work out fine.
