The Scarborough Shooting Stars play first home game in franchise history Saturday when they host the Hamilton Honey Badgers at 7:30 p.m. at the Toronto Pan Am Sports Centre. The Shooting Stars are 1-2 and the Honey Badgers are 2-1 heading into the game.

The Honey Badgers bounced back Thursday night with a 103-85 win over the Guelph Nighthawks following their close 71-70 loss to the Fraser Valley Bandits, and enter this matchup with another win and momentum. In their win over Guelph, the Honey Badgers forced 22 Nighthawks turnovers, with five steals coming from Christian Vital and three from Keevan Veinot who came off the bench.

Hamilton showed their ability to capitalize on mistakes, and showed their depth against Guelph, scoring 21 points off turnovers and recording 38 bench points. They got scoring from 10 players, six of whom recording at least one takeaway, and they turned their defence into offence. The Honey Badgers showcased their depth against Guelph, and that depth which won the bench points +10 and kept the facilitation up assisting on 10 made baskets, kept the Honey Badgers rolling.

Hamilton’s ability to get scoring and execution deep from their bench is comparable to the Shooting Stars in their recent 98-81 win over Ottawa, the first for the expansion franchise.

Though all five starters finished in double-digits, Scarborough got 24 bench points. Scarborough went with a bigger lineup against the taller Ottawa BlackJacks, but their facilitation still came from Jalen Harris and Xavier Rathan-Mayes who assisted on 13 baskets.

The Hamilton guards and the defensive intensity Hamilton showed in their win will be tested against the high volume and fast pace of the Shooting Stars, as Rathan-Mayes and Harris like to attack when they get the opportunity and find shooters like Kameron Chatman or JV Mukama.

The matchup of Christian Vital and Chatman as two forwards who will shoot the three and deny second chances will take centre stage on Saturday while Caleb Agada and the Honey Badgers try and make the Shooting Stars offence uncomfortable as Ottawa was able to do throughout the middle of their game.

Isiaha Mike coming off of a 21-point and nine rebound performance will be matched up with Jeremiah Tilmon and Zane Waterman on the boards while shooters like Mukama and Jamal Reynolds try and get the better of each other to provide the bench scoring that was present in both their previous wins.

Both teams have shown an ability to get out and run, Scarborough with the speed of their guards and Hamilton with the opportunities created off their defence, and either Hamilton will use it to improve to 3-1, or Scarborough 2-2.

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 .