VANCOUVER — An injury-riddled Winnipeg Wesmen lineup fell just short of pulling off a road upset Saturday night. 

The Wesmen men's basketball team's road to another national championship tournament was ended at War Memorial Gymnasium with a 74-72 defeat at the hands of the UBC Thunderbirds in the Canada West quarter-final. 

The Wesmen, who had qualified for the past two U Sports Final 8 tournaments, had their season ended with the loss. It was Winnipeg's first loss in 11 road games this season and its first defeat in a true road game since Jan. 5, 2024, a stretch of 14 games. 

Winnipeg played its second straight game without reserve guard Alberto Gordo and lost guard Kato Jaro to injury just minutes before halftime. As a result, four of Winnipeg's five starters logged at least 34 minutes. 

The No. 6-seeded Wesmen, who finished the season with a program-record 16-4 mark, trailed 46-39 at the half after the Thunderbirds outscored them 22-12 in the second quarter. The Wesmen trailed throughout the third quarter as UBC kept the gap between five and nine points for most of the period. Winnipeg, however, was able to close the UBC advantage to 57-55 on a Shawn Maranan three with a little over a minute remaining.

In the fourth, after UBC upped its lead to seven, the Wesmen went on a 10-4 run to get to 68-67 down with under four remaining. A Lamar Everd bucket with 47 seconds left cut the T-Birds lead to 74-72 and, on the next possession, the Wesmen forced a miss from Adam Olsen, but Fareed Shittu pulled down the offensive rebound. Winnipeg had three fouls to give and not enough time to put UBC on the line and the Thunderbirds were able to run the clock out. 

Maranan, the all-star guard who will undoubtedly be regarded as one of the best in Wesmen history, scored 14 points, had nine assists, six rebounds and four steals in his final game in a Wesmen uniform. Elijah Mensah had 14 points in 14 minutes off the bench, and Lamar Everd scored 10 in his final game. 

"I was super pleased with our effort," Winnipeg head coach Mike Raimbault said. "This is an extremely tough team to play against and a tough place to play. Having played a game (Friday) was a challenge for us, but I was super proud of our effort and our focus to continue to fight. We gave ourselves a chance to be there in the end and we just came up a little bit short."

Shittu's 28 points and 14 rebounds led UBC, which now goes on to play Manitoba in a conference semifinal.