With two days to go until the start of the 2023 BC School Sports Boys Basketball Provincial Championships, the draw has been released.
The 64-team championship is broken into four 16-team tiers, running from 1A to 4A, and just over 10% of the field is from the Thompson-Okanagan.
The Kelowna Secondary School Owls are the lone representative from the region to be in the highest division (4A), while the South Kamloops Titans are the only Thompson-Okanagan team in the 3A division.
In the 2A division, the Summerland Rockets and Westsyde Whundas (Kamloops) will both be gunning for a title.
The final three teams from the Thompson-Okanagan, the Aberdeen Hall Gryphons (Kelowna), Similkameen Sparks (Keremeos) and St. Ann’s Academy Crusaders (Kamloops), will all compete in the 1A tournament.
Of those seven teams, the two with the highest expectations heading into the tournament this weekend are the two from Kelowna.
The KSS Owls are ranked fifth in the 4A tournament, drawing a matchup against the 12th-seed Claremont Spartans from Victoria in round one.
Aberdeen Hall is the third-ranked team in the 1A tournament and will take on the 14th-seeded Ucluelet Warriors in the first round, and are guaranteed to be the higher seed in their second-round matchup as well, if they advance past the Warriors.
All the action will begin on Wednesday morning from the Langley Events Centre and the champions of all four divisions will be crowned on Saturday.
You can stay up to date on all the action through the tournament website.
