Alliance and Honey Badgers Battle for Final Playoff Spot in Eastern Conference

July 23, 2023

The final playoff spot in the Eastern Conference remains up for grabs and the two teams grappling for it will meet Sunday afternoon.


The Montréal Alliance (-133) will host the Brampton Honey Badgers (-105) at Verdun Auditorium at 4 p.m. ET in their final home game of the season. 


The game will be available for streaming on TSN+, CEBL+ powered by BetVictor and on the CEBL Mobile app available on iOS and Android devices.


The Alliance have lost two in a row but enter the contest ahead in the standings at 7-11 in fourth place in the Eastern Conference. Montréal is coming off back-to-back losses to the Scarborough Shooting Stars in a home-and-home earlier in the week. They lost by three at home on Wednesday before falling by 10 points in Scarborough on Friday. 


Meanwhile, the Honey Badgers enter in fifth place in the East at 6-10 but have two more games remaining than Montréal. The defending champs’ fate is in their own hands. If they win their final four games, then the Honey Badgers will make the CEBL Playoffs.  They will come into the clash well-rested after losing 86-84 to the Saskatchewan Rattlers on Monday.


Brampton won the previous two meetings with Montréal this season early in June. The Honey Badgers came to Québec and defeated the Alliance 94-82 on June 4, powered by 28 points from Koby McEwen. Four other Brampton players reached double-digit points in the victory. 


Meanwhile, Montréal was led by 25 points from Blake Francis who suffered an injury later in the season and was released by the club. Ahmed Hill, the other Alliance star, went down with an injury in that game after just over 15 minutes of action.


Hill missed the following game against Brampton on June 7 and Montréal missed him. The Honey Badgers outscored the Alliance 23-8 in the fourth quarter on their way to an 89-65 win. McEwen led the team in scoring again with 17 points to go along with six assists. 


However, Brampton will have to find a way to contain Hill on Sunday. He has since returned to the lineup and has been one of the league’s most effective scorers this summer. In Friday’s loss to the Shooting Stars, Hill dropped a game-high 27 points to go along with nine rebounds and five assists. He leads the Alliance in scoring this season with 20.2 points per game – which is tied for fourth in the CEBL with Brampton’s Christian Vital. 


Vital also ranks in the league’s top 10 in minutes per game, assists per game and steals per game. In the loss to Saskatchewan on Monday, he secured a double-double with 22 points, 10 rebounds, four assists and two blocks.


He’s supported in the Honey Badgers’ lineup by McEwen, Jeremiah Tilmon Jr., Zane Waterman and Prince Oduro. McEwen is putting up 13.8 points per game and 5.7 assists per game in a starting role this season. Meanwhile, Waterman is averaging 12.5 points and 7.3 rebounds and coming off an outstanding performance against the Rattlers. He matched Vital with 22 points while snagging 17 rebounds against Saskatchewan. Oduro also had a huge double-double in the loss with 15 points and 14 rebounds. 


On the other side, Montréal receives consistent contributions from former NBA player Treveon Graham and homegrown big man Nathan Cayo, in addition to Hill. Graham is nearly averaging a double-double with 14.7 points and 9.5 rebounds this season – which ranks second in the league. Meanwhile, Cayo is scoring 14.9 per game and hauling in 5.9 rebounds per game. He will look to bounce back from just seven points in Montréal’s loss to Scarborough on Friday. 


Following Sunday’s contest, the Alliance will head to Meridian Centre on Friday (July 28) for their regular season finale against the Niagara River Lions. Brampton will play a home-and-home with Scarborough before they also finish their season against Niagara next weekend. 


All games are available for streaming on TSN+, CEBL+ powered by BetVictor and on the CEBL Mobile app available on iOS and Android devices.


A league created by Canadians for Canadians with a mission to develop Canadian players, coaches, sports executives, and referees, the CEBL boasts the highest percentage of Canadian players of any pro league in the country with 71 per cent of its 2022 rosters being Canadian. Players bring experience from the NBA, NBA G League, top international pro leagues, the Canadian National team program, and top NCAA programs as well as U SPORTS. Nine players have moved from the CEBL into the NBA following a CEBL season, and 28 CEBL players attended NBA G League training camps during October. The CEBL season runs from May through August.  More information about the CEBL is available at CEBL.ca and @cebleague on Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, LinkedIn, Facebook & YouTube.

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