Everything you should know ahead of CEBL championship weekend
All eyes on Edmonton as Stingers attempt to repeat as champions on home court
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The road to the CEBL title goes through Edmonton
Three games remain in the Canadian Elite Basketball League season, all of which take place in Edmonton this weekend.
The one-game semifinals go Friday at 7 and 9:30 p.m. ET, with the championship on Sunday at 4 p.m. ET. You can watch all the action live on CBC-TV and CBCSports.ca.
Here's everything you should know ahead of championship weekend:
Awards were won. For the third consecutive time (in the CEBL's three-year existence), Edmonton Stingers guard Xavier Moon took home top player honours. Moon led the Stingers to a rousing 13-1 record, while contributing the top two single-game scoring performances in league history — including 39 (in an approximately 40-minute game, remember) in an August contest. Moon was the league-leading scorer and third in assists per game.
The other nominee for top player was Hamilton's Lindell Wigginton, who instead won top Canadian over reigning champion Jordan Baker of Edmonton. Despite the Honey Badgers' shocking quarter-final exit, Wigginton excelled in his debut CEBL season, placing only behind Moon in scoring while leading his team in assists and rebounds. You may see Wigginton with Team Canada during national-team qualifying windows that overlap with the NBA season in the coming year.
WATCH | CBC Sports breaks downs CEBL's championship weekend:
No. 2 Niagara takes on No. 4 Fraser Valley in the first semifinal. The lower-ranked Bandits reached the semis behind a record-breaking 20-point quarter-final victory over Guelph and have now won three straight. They've played the River Lions twice this season, with vastly different results: a 23-point win in June, and a 21-point loss in July. The River Lions boast the Canadian basketball staple Scrubb brothers as well as defending U Sports player of the year and 2021 nominee Lloyd Pandi, who also plays for powerhouse university program Carleton. The Bandits are led by guard Alex Campbell, who represented Canada in Olympic 3x3 basketball qualifying, and sixth man of the year candidate Shaquille Keith.
But the more intriguing matchup is No. 1 Edmonton vs. No. 6 Ottawa. The Stingers are the defending champions playing on home soil following a 13-1 regular-season record. The BlackJacks went 4-10, including 0-7 on the road, before stunning the 10-4 Honey Badgers in Hamilton in the quarter-finals. The Stingers come armed with Moon and Baker, two of the best players in the league. The BlackJacks had no award candidates, but signed 30-year-old big man Chad Posthumus two days before the playoffs, who helped prevent Ottawa's death with 23 points and a playoff-record 20 rebounds. But before you call this a David vs. Goliath matchup, the lone team who beat Edmonton this season? Yup, that would be Ottawa.
There will be a title-clinching shot. The CEBL uses the Elam Ending — add nine points to the leading team's total with four minutes remaining, and the first side to reach that target score wins. The method both ensures that the end of games don't drag with copious intentional fouling and timeouts, and that every contest features a game-winning bucket. It was Moon, unsurprisingly, who played the hero in 2020.
