Before Kianna Wiens embarked on her post-secondary basketball career, she was cashing buckets for the Riffel Royals in Regina during her high school years.
Wiens then decided it was time to leave home and head out west, where she would use up four years of her U Sports eligibility at Trinity Western University in Langley, B.C.
“I thought about coming to the Cougars, but they were really guard-heavy at the time, so I was looking for other opportunities and yeah, I had a great experience out there,” Wiens said.
Next up was a trip across the pond, where Wiens would play a year of professional basketball for the Jolly Jumper Tubbergen in the Netherlands.
“Definitely a different style of play in terms of basketball. A little more structured, a little more physical and on the slower side I would say, compared to Canada West, so it was definitely an adjustment going over there,” Wiens said.
So with one year left of U Sports eligibility, and planning to go back to school, Wiens was approached this summer by University of Regina Cougars head coach Dave Taylor, who had some convincing pitches to get her to join the team.
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“One of them was to go overseas and play in Greece and we played five NCAA teams there. So I kind of came back from Europe and then got to go back again, which was awesome and I knew a bunch of the girls here, so that was a huge perk of coming to play here,” Wiens said.
Wiens has had to be a jack of all trades this season for the Cougars, filling in for the injured Cara Misskey at point guard until late November, and then transitioning to more of an off-ball role.
Taylor said fitting in with the team has been a seamless transition for Wiens.
“I knew that going in we had a veteran person with high basketball IQ, great character kid that grew up in Regina, so knew lots of our players and would fit in with the team culture right away,” Taylor said.
As the Cougars are coming up on the latter part of their season, Wiens is simply soaking it up while she can.
“Just with all the girls it’s been a super awesome team dynamic. But yeah, it’s been really fun and being my last year I just want to finish strong and enjoy the rest of the year.”
The Cougars have two back-to-back home games this weekend against the Mount Royal Cougars, before two tough road swings against the Alberta Pandas and Saskatchewan Huskies.
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