The 3-9 Montreal Alliance host the 9-3 Hamilton Honey Badgers on Thursday at 7:30 p.m. ET.  Montreal has lost their last seven while Hamilton is coming off a pair of wins. 

Hamilton will be without Jeremiah Tilmon Jr and Christian Vital, two players who were big pieces of the Honey Badgers offence now playing in the NBA Summer League.  Vital and Tilmon combined for 39 points in the Honey Badgers 95-76 win in Guelph on June 30.  Taking their place, Hamilton has added Isaiah Reese and Joel James, a guard and center.

Reese will have company in the backcourt with facilitator Caleb Agada.  In Hamilton’s most recent 86-75 win over Ottawa, Agada scored 19 points on 58 per cent shooting to go with six rebounds, four assists and a steal playing 27 minutes.  Agada currently ranks second in steals (2.3) and third in assists (5.7) per game in the CEBL and helps create many of the opportunities on offence with his ability to attack and dish it to players around him like Vital and Nikola Djogo who is coming off of a 12 point, six rebound game against Ottawa. 

On the perimeter, Dominic Green and Isiah Osborne give the Alliance shooting while Alain Louis and Sherwood Brown facilitate the offence.  In Montreal’s 98-86 loss to Saskatchewan on June 26, Green led with 22 points while Brown and Louis combined for six assists.

Taking the spot of Tilmon, James will be put alongside Zane Waterman, Martin Krampelj and Prince Oduro inside the paint.  Hamilton leads the CEBL in rebounds per game with 39.1, and thanks to 10 rebounds from Oduro in their win over Ottawa, they once again won the rebounding battle and kept on top.

The forwards of Oduro, Waterman and Krampelj will be going against the trio of Ashley Hamilton, James Jean-Marie and the Alliance’s newest addition, Emondre Rickman.  The physicality of Rickman caused disruptions inside the paint for the Shooting Stars in Montreal’s recent 78-68 loss and on offence he created space and size to get to the free throw line. 

While Rickman and Oduro battle for boards, the scoring that Nathan Cayo provides with his relentless attack goes up against the shooting of Waterman and Djogo.  Djogo sits fifth in the CEBL in three-point percentage at 45 and the duo of him and Waterman often provide the extra spark and threat the Honey Badgers need to stay on top.

This is the second time these two teams are meeting.  Their first meeting came at the start of the season when Hamilton came away with a 80-72 win.  In that game, Agada and Vital combined for 32 points while Tilmon worked inside for 15 points and five rebounds.  On the side of Montreal, Dominic Green and Isiah Osborne combined for 26 points and Nathan Cayo led on the boards with seven rebounds. 

Montreal wants to bounce back following a losing skid while the Honey Badgers, sitting just half of a game ahead of Fraser Valley and Niagara, want to remain on top of the CEBL standings.

All games will be streamed live internationally on the CEBL’s OTT platform, CEBL+, and on the CEBL Mobile app for iOS and Android devices.  Games will also be available to stream live in Canada via cbcsports.ca, the CBC Sports app for iOS and Android devices, and the free CBC Gem streaming service. 

A league created by Canadians for Canadians, the CEBL has the highest percentage of Canadian players of any professional league in the country, with 71 percent of its current rosters being Canadians.  Players bring experience from the NBA, NBA G League, top international leagues, the Canadian National team program, and top NCAA programs as well as U SPORTS.  The only First Division Professional League Partner of Canada Basketball.  The CEBL season runs from May through August.  Head to CEBL.ca for more information or follow us (@cebleague) on Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, LinkedIn, Facebook & YouTube.