After three days of play, UBC campus will see a rematch of last year’s U Sports women’s basketball national championship game between the first-seeded University of Saskatchewan Huskies and the third-seeded Carleton University Ravens.
Both teams come to the championship game after being stand-out teams in their conference. The Huskies won Canada West gold against the UBC Thunderbirds, while the Ravens have only dropped one game all season — to the University of Ottawa Gee-Gees, who they defeated in yesterday’s semifinal match.
The teams seem to be a close match after similar semifinal performances, with the Huskies winning (85–63) and the Ravens (84–60). Despite this, the Huskies statistically outrank the Ravens in points per game (83.7 versus 75.4), free throw percentage (71.5 versus 66.5) and rebounds (46.5 versus 44.9).
Saskatchewan’s Gage Grassick is a player to watch out for. The Canada West and U Sports women's basketball player of the year led her conference in scoring and the nation in assists per game, three-point field goals and three-point field goal percentage.
On the Ravens’ side is Tatyanna Burke who executed impeccable ball control in the Ontario University Athletics (OUA) regular season and was instrumental to the team’s turnovers in yesterday’s semifinal.
Grassick and Burke also had big roles to play this time last year when the teams last faced each other. Despite Grassick putting up 30 points alone in the 2024 championship game, a Burke basket gave Carleton a five-point lead with only 47 seconds left in the game, which they maintained to narrowly win the title, 70–67.
Burke told The Ubyssey today’s game features an out-of-conference team “unfamiliar” to the Ravens, but that Carleton will prepare “the same as any other game.”
“We’ll be ready,” said Burke.
Ravens head coach Dani Sinclair — who was named back-to-back OUA’s basketball Coach of the Year — shared a similar sentiment and said the national championship game means as much to the team as any other.
“We don't focus on any one team, we just focus on whoever we’re playing next,” said Sinclair. “We just take it one possession at a time and come up with a game plan.”
The Ravens and Huskies will battle for gold at 4 p.m. at UBC’s Doug Mitchell Thunderbird Sport Centre.
This article is part of our 2025 Final 8 coverage. Follow us at @UbysseySports on X (formerly Twitter) and Instagram, as well as @theubyssey on TikTok, to follow our U Sports basketball coverage starting March 12.
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