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The Hamilton Honey Badgers and the Scarborough Shooting Stars will both look to extend their winning streaks on Thursday night in a matchup at FirstOntario Centre at 7:00 p.m. ET.

The Honey Badgers enter Thursday’s game atop the Canadian Elite Basketball League (CEBL) standings with a 12-3 record and riding a five-game winning streak. Hamilton has a playoff spot clinched and are hunting for a bye to the league semi-final in Ottawa next month. On their five-game winning streak, Hamilton has picked up victories over the Guelph Nighthawks, Ottawa BlackJacks, Montreal Alliance, Edmonton Stingers and Saskatchewan Rattlers.

Hamilton’s last loss came on June 25th in Scarborough against their opponent on Thursday, the Shooting Stars. Scarborough picked up a narrow 75-72 win over Hamilton powered by 21 points from Kameron Chatman, who also had the game-winner. Hamilton won the first meeting between the two squads on June 4th, 84-69 at Toronto Pan Am Sports Centre. Christian Vital dropped 27 points in that game while the Honey Badgers contained Jalen Harris and limited him to just 9 points.

The Shooting Stars come into the third matchup with the first-place Honey Badgers at 8-5 on a three-game winning streak of their own. Scarborough has picked up back-to-back home wins with a 94-89 defeat of Guelph and a 78-68 victory over Montreal, along with a 93-86 win on the road against the Fraser Valley Bandits. Since losing to Hamilton in June, the Shooting Stars have won seven of their last nine games, with both of their losses coming by three points or less.

Jalen Harris enters the contest second in the CEBL’s scoring race at 21.4 points per game, behind only Niagara’s Khalil Ahmad at 21.8 points per game, with Newfoundland’s Brandon Sampson and Guelph’s Cat Barber close behind with 21.3 points per game and 20.3 points per game respectively. Harris is shooting 42.9 per cent from the field, 29.7 per cent from three and 72.2 per cent from the free throw line with 3.4 turnovers per game.

Kameron Chatman and Isiaha Mike have emerged as clear-cut secondary and tertiary scorers for the Shooting Stars with Harris garnering most of the attention. Chatman averages 14.9 points per game and 5.8 rebounds per game while Mike checks in at 13.6 points per game and 6.1 rebounds per game.

Caleb Agada will likely be relied upon heavily by Hamilton once again. Agada has been fantastic all season, but with Christian Vital and Jeremiah Tillmon away at NBA Summer League for the past three games, Agada’s presence has been essential. He’s averaging 13.5 points per game, 6.4 rebounds per game, 5.5 assists per game and 2.1 steals per game this season and led the team in scoring in their win over Montreal. Averaging 10.7 points per game this season, Koby McEwan has stepped up in the absence of Vital and Tillmon and will be required to carry some of the offensive load once again on Thursday.

The game will stream on CEBL+ live internationally and in Canada at cbcsports.ca, the CBC Sports app for iOS

and Android devices and the free CBC Gem streaming service. Games are also available on the CEBL’s official app, CEBL Mobile, available on iOS and Android devices.

Scarborough Shooting Stars tickets are available at https://www.scarboroughshootingstars.ca/tickets554a5865 while tickets are available at https://www.honeybadgers.ca/tickets .

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 .