Scarborough Shooting Stars and Brampton Honey Badgers Meet in Battle of Backcourts

The Scarborough Shooting Stars (2-4) will look to climb out of the basement in the eastern conference and defeat the Brampton Honey Badgers (4-3) for the second time this season tonight at the Toronto Pan Am Centre at 7:00 pm ET.

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

Tonight’s game will see two of the best back courts in the CEBL go head-to-head. 

The Shooting Stars—powered by 41 points from guards Cat Barber and Jalen Harris—beat the Honey Badgers 80-78 in Brampton on May 26 to begin their season. 

Scarborough also overcame a double-double performance from Brampton guard Christian Vital in that game. The reigning CEBL Finals MVP dropped 36 points, shot nearly 70 per cent in the field, and secured 13 boards. 

His backcourt mate Koby McEwen—who is averaging 16.6 points this season—shot a dismal 1-10 from the field in that game and scored only 3 points. 

However, after dispatching the Honey Badgers on opening weekend, Scarborough would go on to lose four straight games. Defence was a major area of concern for the Shooting Stars in that skid, as they gave up more than 93 points in each of the four games. 

But in their last game, exactly one week ago, Scarborough rebounded by holding the Montréal Alliance to just 72 points in a 32-point rout at the Verdun Auditorium. 

The Shooting Stars’ bench outscored the Alliance’s bench 32-11, and nearly doubled their points off turnovers (20-11). 

Both Harris and Barber rank in the top 10 in the league in steals per game, and as a team, Scarborough is leading the CEBL with a little over 9 steals per contest. 

Brampton comes into tonight’s road match after a disappointing performance against the Winnipeg Sea Bears on June 15. 

The Honey Badgers lost 110-89, and Vital was ejected after recording two technical fouls in the third quarter. 

Before the loss in Winnipeg, though, Brampton was riding high on a four-game win streak that propelled them to the top half of the eastern conference standings. Vital sits fourth in the league in scoring (21.3), while McEwen is third in the CEBL with 5.6 assists per game. 

The two teams are averaging almost the exact same points per game (88 for Brampton and 87.3 for Scarborough) and are within a percentage point on average two-point field goal percentage. 

But Brampton is shooting over 5 per cent better from deep, averaging 35.5 per cent as a team from three, compared to Scarborough’s 30.2 per cent. 

This will be the second of four matchups in the regular season between Brampton and Scarborough. 

Full broadcast schedule of CEBL Games of the Week on TSN can be found here. All games will also be streamed live internationally on the CEBL’s OTT platform, CEBL+, and on the CEBL Mobile app for 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 percent 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.