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OUA Three-peat MVP Gray Tops Hamilton’s 2020 CEBL U SPORTS Draft
Hamilton Honey Badgers • Mar 26, 2020
Honey Badgers select three from Ontario in 2020 CEBL U SPORTS Draft
Laurentian University’s Kadre Gray, a First Team all-Canadian and Most Valuable Player of Ontario University Athletics the past three seasons, was the First Round selection of the Hamilton Honey Badgers in the 2020 CEBL U SPORTS Draft. Hamilton also selected Lock Lam
of Lakehead University
and Eric Rwahwire
of the University of Toronto
in the second and third rounds, respectively. The draft was held by conference call with the seven member teams of the Canadian Elite Basketball League on March 19, and the league office announced the picks publicly Thursday.
Gray, a 6-foot-1 guard from Toronto, is just the18th player in more than 50 years of U Sports history to be named First Team All-Canadian
on three occasions. He led the OUA in scoring all four years he played for the Voyageurs and led the nation in scoring this season for the third time in his career. His OUA-leading scoring average of 23.8 points per game was supported by averages of 6.5 rebounds and 6.0 assists per game. The 22-year-old Health Promotion major became just the fourth player in OUA history to record 2,000 points in his career, leaving Laurentian having averaged 25.7 points, 7.0 rebounds, and 5.9 assists in 84 career games.
In the Second Round, Hamilton selected Lock Lam, a third-year 6-foot-9 forward out of Lakehead University. Lam averaged 13.5 points, 9.2 rebounds and led the nation in blocked shots with an average of 3.85 per game in 22 contests. His 77 blocked shots led the country by more than 30 total blocks. Lam was named OUA Defensive Player of the Year and U Sports Defensive Player of the Year. The Ottawa native was also selected to the OUA Third Team. He helped guide the Thunderwolves to a fifth-in-the-nation ranking in the second half of the season.
Hamilton selected Eric Rwahwire, a 6-foot-5 guard with the University of Toronto in the third and final round of the U Sports Draft. Rwahwire averaged 15.6 points, 5.1 rebounds, and 1.3 assists in 19 games for the Varsity Blues this season. He scored a season-high 29 points in 33 minutes versus McMaster on November 30, 2019 and scored 20 or more points in seven contests. Prior to returning to his native Toronto, Rwahwire played 39 games over parts of four seasons at the University of California-Riverside from 2015-19. He averaged 3.2 points, 2.1 rebounds and 10.2 minutes during his career with the Highlanders. Prior to that Rwahwire played four years at Saddleback Valley Christian High School in San Juan Capistrano, California. His team won its league title all four of his seasons, and Rwahwire was named Orange County all-star, co-league MVP and First Team all-CIF as a senior.
All total, there were 21 U Sports players from 10 different universities across Canada selected in the draft. With seven teams across four provinces, the CEBL is the “Official First Division Professional League Partner of Canada Basketball, adhering to official FIBA rules and regulations. The Honey Badgers 2020 regular season is scheduled to tip off May 8 when they visit the Edmonton Stingers. Their home-opener is slated for Saturday, May 16 at Hamilton’s FirstOntario Centre.
Beginning this season, CBC Sports will live stream all 70 regular season CEBL games and its five playoff contests, plus deliver eight over-the-air television broadcasts nationally, including the CEBL Championship game live from Edmonton on August 16, 2020.
Season tickets, Flex Packs, and Individual game tickets for the Honey Badgers are on sale now at (905) 522-BALL.
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