Vancouver Bandits 2024 Season Preview
The safety net is gone for the Vancouver Bandits and that suits Kyle Julius just fine.
“I think last year was a gift and a curse. I like this way better,” admitted the team’s head coach and general manager, who enters his fifth season in one capacity or the other with the pro basketball team.
“From a coaching standpoint, I think the urgency is better, having to get up every day knowing you have to earn (your spot).”
Julius was referencing last summer when the Bandits knew they were guaranteed to be one of the last four teams standing as the host of the Canadian Elite Basketball League’s Championship Weekend at Langley Events Centre.
He was speaking on Wednesday afternoon to the assembled media following the conclusion of the team’s practice which opened up training camp as Vancouver gets set for their season debut on May 23 when they host the Montréal Alliance at Langley Events Centre.
Coincidentally, the Alliance are in the same boat as the Bandits from a season ago as they are this summer’s Championship Weekend host.
The Bandits return four players from last summer’s squad which struggled to an 8-12 record but was a basket away from advancing to the CEBL Championship game for the first time since 2020.
Arguably the biggest returnee – both in terms if impact and actual size – is Nick Ward, a 6-foot-9 American import who averaged a team-high 18.5 points and 7.9 rebounds (second on the team) in 2023. His field goal percentage (61.6 percent) and offensive rebounding (3.16 per game) were both also top five in the CEBL.
Joining Ward as an inside presence will be Surrey’s James Karnik, who missed the entire 2023 campaign to allow both his mind and body to fully heal. In 10 games with the Bandits in 2022, the 6-foot-9 forward averaged 15.9 points and 7.9 rebounds.
“My body is feeling the best it has ever felt,” Karnik said, adding it has been a long time since he felt this explosive on the court.
Karnik has set a personal goal of one highlight-reel play per game for himself.
The rest of the forward group consists of Kur Jongkuch (6-foot-9), Sam Maillet (6-foot-7), Drew Urquhart (6-foot-8) and Josip Vrankic (6-foot-9). Jongkuch is back for a second season while Urquhart played one game for the Bandits back in 2019. Maillet joins the team from Dalhousie where he helped the Tigers advance to three U Sports Final 8 tournaments. He was also the Atlantic University Sport (AUS) Defensive Player of the Year. Vrankic spend this past season in the LEB Oro, the second highest division of professional basketball in Spain.
Urquhart returns to the professional game after a couple of seasons away, although he did keep tabs on the team as a Bandits season-ticket holder. But once he got the call from Julius, he jumped at the chance to join the squad.
But while size is a critical component in team success, Julius knows something was missing so he went out to address that.
“We wanted to try and build on the success we did have last year per possession and then add some athleticism, add some speed, add some quickness to that,” Julius explained about Ward’s inside presence would draw another defender, creating more space for the team’s guards on the perimeter.
To get more dynamic guard-play, the team has brought in a several new faces, the most prominent of those being Tazé Moore, a 6-foot-5 American guard who suited up in a handful of NBA games this past season for Portland. He also has G-League experience.
Moore struggled through his collegiate career with multiple surgeries, but said those setbacks made him that much more appreciative of his journey, also learning not to take anything in life for granted.
“You are always going to have your ups and downs, but at the end of the day, as long as you have faith in yourself, faith in a higher power, things will work out in the best situation for yourself,” he said.
Glen Yang(6-foot-4), Koby McEwen (6-foot-4) and Zach Copeland (6-foot-4) are all new to the Bandits, while the rest of the backcourt features returnees Duane Notice (6-foot-2) and Diego Maffia (6-foot-1).
Three times during the Bandits’ eight victories in 2023, Notice was responsible for the winning points during Target Score Time, and he also led all Vancouver players in accuracy from beyond the arc, connecting on 40.6 percent of his 3-point attempts.
Maffia joined Vancouver last summer on a U SPORTS development contract and with the experience gained in 2023, took that back to the University of Victoria, winning the U SPORTS Player of the Year award.
Yang and McEwen both have CEBL experience with Yang previously playing for Winnipeg while McEwen won the 2022 CEBL championship with Hamilton, also picking up the league’s Sixth Man of the Year Award that season. Copeland is new to the league but is a prolific shooter who is enjoying his most decorated professional season to date as a member of the Bamberg Baskets in Germany’s renowned Basketball Bundesliga. In 34 games, he averaged 17.7 points and 4.2 assists on 37.8 percent shooting from 3-point range.

The Bandits roster is rounded out by Adam Olsen, a 6-foot-7 guard/forward from UBC, 6-foot-1 guard Jerric Palma from Western, and 6-foot-11 centre Connor Platz of Trinity Western University. All three were selected in the CEBL Draft and are signed to Development Player contracts and retain their eligibility for the 2024-25 U Sports season.
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