Every so often a name shows up at an event that nobody in the gym has scouted before, and by the end of the weekend it's the only name anyone's talking about. That's exactly what happened with Q'ai Gresham. TMM had never laid eyes on him before this weekend in Edmonton. By the time it was over, he was the single most memorable prospect on the floor, full stop, out of every player at the event. Gresham plays for a WCPA regional squad, part of the same program built by head coach Sonny Sooch that has become one of the deepest wells of talent in Western Canada. He's a Portland, Oregon product, listed in the six-foot-five to six-foot-six range, and a 2027 grad still searching for the right college home. He's also a multi-sport athlete, with a background in track and field and high-level football to go with the basketball, and it shows in every possession. This isn't a basketball player who happens to be athletic. This is a freak athlete who happens to have picked basketball. The stylistic comparison that keeps coming to mind watching him is a blend of Kevin Porter and Anthony Edwards, and that's not a comp thrown around lightly. Gresham gets downhill and cuts through a defense the way a wide receiver breaks off a route, the way a cornerback closes on a ball in the air, fast, sudden, and total. Watching him slice through help defense is like watching a hot knife through butter. The bounce is just as absurd. He plays like he's weightless in the open floor and above the rim in traffic, but there's real strength packed into that frame, not just length and hops. Finishing through contact is still a work in progress, which is true of essentially every high-level high school prospect at this stage, and it's the one real swing area left in his game. Everything else, the confidence, the competitiveness, the focus, the way he carries himself as a leader on the floor, already looks like it belongs at the next level. Drop Gresham into an SEC caliber roster tomorrow with zero context, and nobody watching would blink. He’s that level of athlete. Having sat close to courtside for Sweet Sixteen and Elite Eight games in person, that's not a throwaway line. His level of athleticism doesn't just hold up against that competition, it threatens to exceed it. A 2027 talent with this kind of frame, feel, and vertical explosiveness landing on the radar this late in the process from a name nobody had scouted before is exactly the kind of discovery that makes a weekend like this worth showing up to. Gresham is now squarely on TMM's board, and the process of finding him the right college home starts now. Fuel your game with BioSteel. Use code THEMAPLEMINUTE when you shop BioSteel and support independent Canadian basketball coverage at the same time. http://biosteel.ca/themapleminute The Maple Minute may earn a commission on purchases made through our BioSteel affiliate link.

For years the hierarchy in Western Canadian basketball has been settled business. WCPA, Edge, and CTA West, in some order depending on the season, have been the three programs everyone in the region measures themselves against. After watching One Prep run through four games this past weekend in Edmonton, it's time to start making room for a fourth name in that conversation. This wasn't a team with one good player carrying a roster. This was a team with legitimate size and talent at every position on the floor. Bilal AMA Start in the frontcourt, where Bilal Ama, a 2028 big man standing somewhere around six-foot-eight to six-foot-nine, gave One Prep a true anchor that most club teams at this level simply don't have access to. He's a heavy, sturdy frame with more mobility than his size would suggest, capable of putting the ball on the floor and finishing well against smaller opponents. Doubled in the post, he still has real growth to do, which is normal for a big with a full year of development still ahead of him. What isn't normal is the attention already circling him. Sources indicate McMaster has reached out to gauge his interest, a credible enough connection given the program's track record with talent of this archetype, and it's the kind of thing worth watching closely as his 2028 recruitment develops. Isa Gwiboha Then there's the story of the weekend, Isa Gwiboha. Midway through a conversation after one of his games, I was giving a promising guard some pointed advice, the kind you give a graduating senior about to run out of time. He gets to the rim well, plays with real charisma and energy, and carries himself like a leader who pulls his teammates together. He plays with the poise of a kid who could compete at the college level right now, which is exactly what was said to him, right up until he mentioned he's actually a 2030, not a 2027. The read on him didn't just hold up once the class year corrected itself, it got a lot more interesting. A built, Rodney Stuckey style guard already showing a one-dribble pull-up, a shot fake into a rise, even a turnaround in the mid-range, with the instincts to know exactly when to attack and when to pull it back, at that age, is not a normal prospect. He's a name to file away now and revisit often. One Prep's identity piece, though, might be its defense, and that starts with Judah Wright. He played every possession of every game with two fists balled up, pressuring guards full-court, making every catch and every dribble a fight. It's not flashy. He doesn't need it to be. When his shots came, he made them, he got two feet into the paint when the lane opened, and he communicated constantly with his teammates, the kind of habits coaches notice even when the box score doesn't. The final game of the weekend, against CTA West, was where it all came together, and by the end of it, the label of defensive player of the event belonged to him and nobody else. The headliner, if One Prep has one, is Lual Lual, a 2027 wing at six-foot-six to six-foot-seven who plays with the kind of positionless versatility that shows up more in the NBA than at the high school level these days. Shooting, ball-handling, size, all in one frame, in the mold of the do-everything wings the league has trended toward. He's the player who passes the eye test first and is the reason the team's ceiling is as high as it is. Coltyn Johnson Around him, Cole Miller gives the roster another shot-making, rim-attacking forward capable of playing some small-ball four, while another forward, Benjamin Fitzgerald, kept resurfacing in the notes all weekend as a name worth tracking closer. Another wing worth tracking is Coltyn Johnson, six-foot-five, who only played in one game of the weekend after coming back from an injury that kept him out the first two days, but made an immediate impression on Sunday. He's a dynamic on-ball defender capable of picking guards up ninety-four feet, applying pressure the length of the floor, forcing turnovers and getting his hands on passes. Yafit Tekali The depth doesn't stop with the headliners, either. Behind Issa, One Prep can turn to Yafit Tekali, a crafty, poised point guard in the mold of a young Waqo Tessema, the guard who played at Cleveland State, bringing a calm, polished presence to the backcourt. There's also Marcus Taylor, a smaller guard who impressed with a nice cross-body pass through the paint, a serviceable table-setter who can get the ball over half court and get his teammates involved. Three guards deep like that means foul trouble or a slow start doesn't sink this team, they've got answers at the position. What ties all of it together is the thing Ontario doesn't have enough of, size on the wing. Ontario produces talented guards at a high rate, year after year, but the multiple long, skilled wings that One Prep is rolling out, four deep, is rare. If this group stays together and keeps developing at the rate it showed this weekend, the conversation about the top programs in Western Canada is going to need a fourth chair at the table.

Graydon Jurik — MADE Hoops Circuit Fifth Year, Fully Locked In Graydon Jurik is back for a fifth and final season with Brampton City Prep, and everything about his summer suggests he's treating it that way. An intensive offseason with BCP's coaching and conditioning staff, an invitation-only camp appearance at Mercyhurst (Erie) where he was competitive against high-level competition, and now a 2026-27 slate that adds a new league to an already-loaded schedule — Jurik enters the year as one of the more proven, battle-tested names in Ontario's 2027 class. Five Years, One Program Jurik's story at BCP is longevity. He's spent his entire high school career with the program, arriving as a young player still learning the pace of prep basketball and developing into a veteran who understands how to compete, communicate, take coaching and set a tone for a team culture. Teammates and coaches around the program have pointed to that consistency as much as anything he does on the floor — he's described as a strong leader on and off the court, the kind of steady, diligent presence a program builds around. That track record matters to the people recruiting him. Five years inside one competitive prep environment means he's already answered questions a lot of prospects haven't: can he handle a demanding schedule, stay accountable, and show up the same way every day. Coach Kevin, BCP's National Head Coach, has called him about as complete an embodiment of the student-athlete standard as there is in the program — someone hard to top for what a college program is looking for at the next level. The Academic Case Jurik graduated grade 12 with a 90% overall average — a mark he sustained through his entire high school career, not a one-year spike. He also graduated as an Ontario Scholar and completed the highest level of community service in the program, all while carrying the training load of one of the more demanding prep basketball schedules around. For college and university coaches, that's not a side note — it's a track record. It tells a staff he can manage the classroom and the gym at the same time, under real pressure, and that he holds himself accountable without being told to. A program recruiting Jurik isn't just recruiting a shooter and a leader; it's adding a 90%+ student and an Ontario Scholar to the locker room and the campus community. An Offseason With a Purpose Jurik didn't take a summer off. He went through an intensive training block with BCP's coaching and conditioning staff, building toward a fifth-year season he's clearly treating as his best shot at getting recruited. That work got tested directly: Jurik earned a spot at an invitation-only camp at Mercyhurst University in Erie, Pennsylvania, and held his own in a competitive setting against players evaluators specifically selected to be there. Invite-only camps like that are a different environment than an open showcase — the competition is curated, and coaches are watching how a player performs when everyone in the gym has already been vetted. Jurik's performance there is a real data point for programs tracking him into the season. He also spent the summer playing with Monarchs Elite on the MADE Hoops circuit, adding another layer of high-level, evaluator-heavy competition to his offseason resume. Arguably the most competitive non-shoe affiliated circuit on the market. Jurik points to this past spring as a turning point in how he sees his own game. "This spring I feel like my confidence and understanding of what I need to do to impact the game has become much more clear," he said. "This off-season I have been working very hard to improve guard skills, IQ, athleticism while still working on my shooting. I'm excited to keep working everyday so I can keep building." A Loaded Slate BCP's 2026-27 schedule gives Jurik no shortage of chances to be seen. The team competes in OSBA 1 and NPA, and adds a new circuit this season in Grind Session — expanding an already high-level slate with another layer of quality competition. For a fifth-year player entering his final high school season, more exposure against tougher fields is exactly what the recruiting timeline calls for. The Scouting Take On the court, the shooting is what stands out most to me. I think Graydon could be one of the best shooters in this class. That's a notable projection for a fifth-year wing entering a season where he'll be tested weekly across OSBA 1, NPA and Grind Session — and it's the kind of skill that translates directly to what post-secondary coaches are hunting for in a floor-spacing, low-maintenance piece. The Bottom Line Five years of proof, a 90%+ academic record, an invite-only camp under his belt, and a projected top-tier shooting profile heading into a fifth-year season across three competitive leagues — Graydon Jurik checks the boxes recruiters look for beyond raw talent. He's not a projection anymore. He's a known quantity walking into his last, best chance to show it.

Four years. That's how long Zayne Hinkson has been showing up to this Edmonton event, and that's how long TMM has been watching him do it. You don't get many prospects you can track start to finish through their entire high school arc at the same tournament, same team, same weekend every year. Hinkson is one of them, and this past weekend was the one where everything clicked into focus at once. The early version of Hinkson was easy to project past and easy to underrate. Slight build, still filling out, more promise than production, the kind of guard evaluators file away as "talented, needs time." Time is exactly what he's had, and exactly what he's used. The frame has caught up. The game was already there. What showed up this weekend was a point guard playing at a completely different pace than everyone else on the floor. That's not hyperbole. Hinkson's composure and poise moved at a speed the rest of the tournament simply wasn't operating at. He has the ball on a string, the kind of clean, low, effortless handle that lets a guard change speeds without ever looking like he's rushing. He gets downhill and finishes, he pulls up from all three levels, and he does it all without the game ever appearing to speed him up. If there's a single trait that separates a connector guard from a lead guard, it's exactly that: the game slows down instead of speeding up. Hinkson's game has slowed all the way down. He's no longer just a promising piece on a stacked roster, either. WCPA has good wings, good size, good depth around him, and Hinkson is the one running it. That's a real developmental jump. Talented young guards get to play alongside good players. The good ones become the reason those players are in position to succeed. This weekend, Hinkson was unmistakably the latter. On paper, Hinkson already carries offers from Northern Illinois and Murray State, and this past week Cal State Bakersfield entered the picture as well — a program that, based on what Hinkson put on tape this weekend, should not be alone in circling him. On the floor, the conversation was simpler: no other point guard at the event could keep pace with him. Not in tempo, not in shot-making, not in the composure to keep a team organized possession after possession for forty minutes. If there was an MVP of the weekend, it was Zayne Hinkson, and it wasn't particularly close. Four years of tracking a prospect usually means watching gradual, incremental growth, a jumper tightening here, a frame filling out there. What Hinkson showed this weekend was different: not incremental, but arrived. The pace, the handle, the shot-making, the ability to elevate the players around him, all of it showed up together, all at once, on the biggest stage this event offers. Programs that have been patient with Zayne Hinkson are about to find out that patience paid off. Fuel your game with BioSteel. Use code THEMAPLEMINUTE when you shop BioSteel and support independent Canadian basketball coverage at the same time. http://biosteel.ca/themapleminute The Maple Minute may earn a commission on purchases made through our BioSteel affiliate link.

Written by Marc The Montréal Prep Showcase highlighted a deep group of young Québec prospects who combined creativity, size, versatility, and competitive fire. Across Orangeville Prep, CTA, Dawson, Vanier, FEIA, Sherbrooke, Montmorency, and Ahuntsic, these eleven players delivered performances that confirmed their long‑term potential. Kyree Taylor - Orangeville Prep | 6'2 | 2027 Kyree played as a true offensive engine. He used creativity in structured five‑on‑five situations to get downhill or create for teammates. He also showed the ability to simplify the game and make the correct read. His passion and competitive fire were evident throughout the showcase. He is a bit thin, but he never hesitates to move the ball and rarely over dribbles. His efficiency in ball screen actions stood out and he consistently made the right and simple decisions. Praise Badejo - Orangeville Prep | 6'1 | 2029 Praise excelled as an offensive creator. He used ball screens with impressive physicality, forcing defenders into contact and maintaining the advantage with strong hip control. He punished defenders who went under and showed comfort shooting off the dribble. His efficiency can fluctuate when he drives with his head down, but he demonstrated the ability to make simple passes, sustain stamina, and create consistent pressure. Jason Bundalian - Dawson | 6'1 | 2027 Jason was one of the most competitive guards at the showcase. He scored at all three levels and played with real hunger. He finished efficiently, crashed the glass, defended with intelligence, and used touch on drives to convert layups. His combination of scoring ability and competitive intensity makes him a reliable piece for Dawson. Malek Alphonse - Brebeuf | 6'1 | 2027 Malek showed outstanding feel in both halfcourt and transition. His comfort operating in two‑man actions in the middle of the floor translated at a high level. He attacked mismatches, read defenders, and created scoring opportunities with confidence. His spot up form contains a slight pause, but his mechanics are consistent and clearly the product of focused work. Malek plays with determination and stamped his value with strong performances against Orangeville and Tri-city. Pierre Charles Yimga - FEIA | 6'5 | 2027 Pierre Charles acted as a complete utility guard. He spaced the floor, ran in transition, and used strong footwork paired with physical strength to finish plays. He embraced contact and initiated it when needed. His in‑between scoring can improve, but his intelligence, physicality, and versatility make him one of FEIA’s most dependable players. Drissa Toure - Sherbrooke | 6'5 | 2027 Drissa emerged as a leader and one of Sherbrooke’s main scorers. His outside shot was reliable and he attacked downhill with confidence. He also initiated offensive possessions, showing improved playmaking comfort. He occasionally relied too heavily on the three and had a few out‑of‑control drives, but that is normal for a player adjusting to a larger role. His positional size and offensive growth make him a prospect to watch this upcoming year. Aliou Diouf - Vanier | 6'7 | 2027 Aliou played as a powerful downhill scorer. His unorthodox movement created repeated trips to the free throw line. He displayed strong size and strength and proved to be more athletic than he initially appears. His motor could increase, but his scoring tools and physical profile give him significant upside. As he shown he could play and get to his against one of the best team in the country (feia) and leading both team in points. Mathis Beauchamp - Montmorency | 6'6 | 2027 Mathis was one of the showcase’s most impactful leaders. He played great within Montmorency’s system, displayed deep shooting range, and showed excellent feel on both ends of the floor. He embraced big moments and scored in extended runs. His efficiency dipped in the second game, but his intelligence, confidence, and scoring rhythm make him a standout. He also maintains a perfect academic record(4’0 gpa), which reflects his discipline. TJ Whelan - CTA | 6'6 | 2027 TJ delivered a simple and highly effective scoring style. He used his size and frame to get downhill, finished with touch, and stretched the floor with spot up shooting. He showed three‑level scoring and consistently found ways to produce. He is not the most athletic, but his craft, patience, and physical strength make him a reliable offensive option. Adam El Aslami - Ahuntsic | 6'7 | 2027 Adam played as a strong post scorer and finisher. He communicated well inside the paint defensively, rebounded consistently, and finished plays with hooks, layups, and putbacks. His left hand and counter moves can develop further, but he remains highly effective even without them. Ajak Aguero - FEIA | 7'0 | 2027 Ajak brought one of the most imposing physical profiles at the showcase. His size and length immediately changed possessions, and he played with real hunger as a rim protector. He moved well for a seven footer, covered ground, and blocked shots in back‑to‑back sequences that shifted momentum. Although he can lose control at times, he showed confidence stretching the floor with made threes and demonstrated that he can defend multiple positions. He finished plays as a roller, attacked the offensive glass, and displayed flashes of scoring touch. Ajak’s combination of mobility, size, and defensive presence gives him one of the highest ceilings in the event. The Montréal Prep Showcase once again highlighted how deep and competitive Québec’s basketball pipeline has become. Every player featured in this report brought something meaningful to the floor, and many others across the province continue to raise the standard with their development, consistency, and hunger. If you are interested in learning more about any of the prospects mentioned here, or the many others who stood out throughout the season, you can reach out through my page. I share additional notes, context, and insights, and I help connect programs with athletes who are actively exploring their next steps. Contact Info: https://linktr.ee/qchoopslover

Every event like this has its share of highlight-reel scorers, the guys who fill up a stat sheet and get the gym buzzing every time they touch the ball. Judah wasn't chasing any of that this weekend in Edmonton, and by the end of it, he didn't need to. Playing for One Prep, he put together the single best defensive performance of the entire event, and it genuinely wasn't close. The style is unmistakable once you've seen it. Judah plays defense with two fists balled up, angry, mean, relentless, picking guards up full court and making every single possession a fight. It doesn't matter what the score is or what point in the game it is, that effort shows up on every trip down the floor, every time he's out there. Watching him work a ball handler is like watching a pest in the truest sense of the word, somebody whose entire job is to make the other team's best players uncomfortable, and he does that job better than anyone else who stepped on the floor this weekend. It's easy for that kind of impact to get lost next to more specialized scorers, and One Prep had other guards this weekend with more polished offensive skill sets. But Judah's minutes told a different story. He wasn't a stopper who disappeared on the other end, either. When his shot was there, he made it. He got two feet into the paint and put pressure on the defense when the lane opened. He communicated constantly, the vocal, connective tissue kind of play that coaches notice even when the highlight reel doesn't. Not flashy, winning basketball, every possession, both ends of the floor. It all came together in the last game of the weekend, against CTA, the toughest matchup on the schedule. That's where Judah put the exclamation point on it, locking in defensively from the opening possession to the final buzzer and making sure nobody left Edmonton without knowing his name. By the time the weekend wrapped, the label was earned. Judah was the defensive player of the event, and there wasn't a second name in the conversation.

There's a version of this story where I never end up in a gym in Edmonton at all. I work construction. Mornings on job sites, forming concrete, building high rises, the kind of work that doesn't leave much room for basketball, let alone a career built around scouting it. I wasn't a recruited player. That path never opened up for me. So every single time Sunny Sooch flies me out to Edmonton to cover his event, I don't take it for granted. Not for one second. This was year four, and if anything, it means more now than it did the first time. The tournament itself has earned its reputation the hard way, by actually producing players. Arafan Diané went on to commit to Houston. Hudson Ward ended up at Penn State the first year. Kavon Bradford landed at Buffalo. David Hansen went to Weber State. Those aren't small programs, and those are names that came directly out of this event, in this gym, in front of the kind of eyes that were in the building again this year. Division I coaches flying up from Idaho a full year early for a 2028 prospect isn't a coincidence. It's what happens when a program builds real credibility over real years, and Sunny and his staff have built exactly that, weekend after weekend, year after year, always treating me like family when I show up. The basketball is only half of what stuck with me this time. On the Sunday, after the last game wrapped, I went out and explored Edmonton on my own, and somewhere in the middle of that I realized I'd taken an Uber, a bus, a subway, an e-scooter across that white bridge that shows up in every skyline shot of the city, and then an airplane, all in about twelve hours, before driving my own car home. Six different ways of getting from one place to another in a single day, all in service of watching kids play a game I love. I don't know how else to describe that except lucky. Genuinely, ridiculously lucky. This trip I also leaned into something new: I put the laptop away entirely and worked off handwritten notes for all three days of basketball. It's been a game changer. Writing something down by hand, in the moment, makes it stick in a way that typing never did and scrolling back through hours of game video never will. There's something about the pen moving while the play is still happening that locks the read into memory. People have started noticing too, coming up to me at my own son's practice to say they like that I still write things down, that it feels old school in a good way. What they don't realize is how much sharper the actual evaluations have gotten because of it. It's not nostalgia. It's just a better way to watch. So before any of the player breakdowns come out of this weekend, and there are a lot of them coming, I wanted to just say the thing plainly. Thank you. To Sunny Sooch and the entire WCPA staff for the hospitality, for trusting me with a front row seat to what they're building, and for believing a construction worker from Ontario could add value to what's happening out there. There is elite talent in Western Canada that the East Coast simply is not seeing yet. That's the gap The Maple Minute exists to close, and getting to do it from inside a gym in Edmonton, four years running, is not something I will ever stop being grateful for.

Javion Tyndale is headed to Seton Hall. The Montverde Academy point guard chose Shaheen Holloway and the Pirates over West Virginia, UNLV, Loyola Chicago, Providence and St. Bonaventure. Five leaf. Class of 2027. Mississauga kid. I've been waiting a long time to write that sentence. I've been on Javion since Grade 9. If I said he was undersized back then I’d be doing the term a disservice. But one thing that stood out was how well he processed the game, 2-3 plays ahead at the time. December 2023, TMM put it in writing with Javion Tyndale: A Coach's Dream, after he dropped 44 in what we called the most competitive high school league in the country. The knock then is the knock now: he's small. Fine. Go ask the defenders how that worked out. Here's what I keep coming back to: nobody handed him this. Last season at Montverde he wasn't supposed to be the guy running the show. Injuries changed that. "I wasn't really expected to be the guy who controlled the ship," he told Zagsblog. Then he controlled it, with multiple games of double-digit assists. Then came this summer. Canada won its first-ever FIBA U18 AmeriCup gold, beat the United States in the final, and Javion walked out as tournament MVP: 12.6 points, 3.2 rebounds and 6.0 assists a game, plus 19 points, eight assists and three steals in the title game. He's said schools started calling in bunches after that gold. Read his TMM profile and the traits are the ones that jump out on tape: instincts, pace, pick-and-roll reads, three-level scoring, and a kid who competes on defense even when he's giving up size. That's why he's a five-leaf prospect on our board (here's how we evaluate). Holloway played point guard at Seton Hall himself, and he's listed at 5'10. Make of that what you want. Javion grew up watching Dillon Brooks and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander. Now a kid from Mississauga is headed to the Big East. Welcome to South Orange, Javion. Fuel your game with BioSteel. Use code THEMAPLEMINUTE when you shop BioSteel and support independent Canadian basketball coverage at the same time. http://biosteel.ca/themapleminute The Maple Minute may earn a commission on purchases made through our BioSteel affiliate link.

WCPA beat Terror Prep 85-64 on Friday at the Western Canada Prep Showcase at the Edmonton Sports Centre. The first half gave no hint of a blowout. The teams traded baskets through the opening five minutes, WCPA took the first two quarters 22-20 and 24-21, and it led just 46-41 at the break. The third quarter decided it. WCPA won it 19-6 and closed it with a three to go up 65-47, an 18-point cushion. The fourth finished 20-17. Zayne Hinkson (WCPA) set the tone. He hit at least three step-back threes in the 1st half, two of them deep makes, and he played with real confidence. He was fluid pulling up in the mid-range and glided with the ball on a string. His feel for the game stood out tremendously. Daniel Banjoko (WCPA), who's from the UK, brings incredible length and looked like an elite defender, possibly the best on in the gym. He sees the floor, made an extra pass in the paint, and has a quick twitch. At the 2:50 mark, his block led to a dunk. Miles Herbert then came up with a steal for another dunk, and a timeout followed changing the tone of the entire game. Oscar Rouillard (WCPA) showed high IQ and communication. His control was incredible, especially on the jab drive in the 2nd half that had my jaw on the floor. Braxton Brook (WCPA) was the glue, taking ownership vocally. He did it fresh off a broken hand, and a Division I assistant coach from Idaho was in the gym to see him. Terror Prep had its own bright spots. Eldar Salac anchors the paint, finished a beautiful spin move, and wouldn't quit on the glass. His left hand didn't show up in this one, and that's the next thing to watch. Luke Putrum-Stephens plays above the rim. Elijah Edwards found Ryan Villeneuve in the corner for a three, then scored in traffic himself. Valentin Tartas hit two tough threes, one of them contested, and answered the previous sequence with a shot of his own. He's the follow-up from this game. Fuel your game with BioSteel. Use code THEMAPLEMINUTE when you shop BioSteel and support independent Canadian basketball coverage at the same time. http://biosteel.ca/themapleminute The Maple Minute may earn a commission on purchases made through our BioSteel affiliate link.

There are certain players you remember watching before everyone knew their name, and Deng Ngor is one of those players for me. I first saw Deng at the Good Hoops Summer Slam in Edmonton when he was playing 15U with Genesis. What made that weekend even more interesting was that Genesis wasn’t playing against other 15U teams. They were playing up in the 18U division against older, bigger and much more physical players. Deng wasn’t the star of that team. He was probably the third option, and when I wrote my prospect watch coming out of the tournament, it was his teammate Kade McGeachy who I featured. I didn’t feature Deng, but I remembered him. He was long, incredibly athletic and seemed capable of doing a little bit of everything. He could defend, rebound, run the floor and affect the game without needing plays called for him. Against players two and three years older, he wasn’t physically dominating anyone, but he also never looked out of place. At that age there was still a lot that needed to develop. The handle wasn’t what it is now, the offensive confidence wasn’t there yet and he wasn’t somebody taking over possessions late in games. Still, the tools were obvious, and I remember thinking he had a chance to become special if he was willing to put the work in. A little more than two years later, Deng Ngor is committed to Ohio State. That is a pretty remarkable sentence when I think back to that weekend in Edmonton, but his rise didn’t suddenly begin when the high-major offers arrived or when he eventually moved to Fort Erie International Academy. It started much earlier. Deng is from Grande Prairie, Alberta, before basketball eventually took him south to Edge School and Genesis. That part of the story matters because Edge and Genesis were where a lot of the development started happening long before much of the recruiting world knew his name. The foundation of the player Ohio State is getting was already being built in Alberta. When I first watched him with Genesis, the athleticism and length jumped out, and over time the rest of the game started catching up. The handle improved considerably. He became much more comfortable attacking off the bounce and operating on the perimeter. His confidence grew with it, and so did his willingness to impose himself on a game. But the biggest thing is that Deng never moved away from what made him interesting in the first place. Everything still starts with defence, and the bigger the game gets, the more he seems to rely on it. His length and motor are, in my opinion, as good as anyone in the country. Deng covers an incredible amount of ground defensively, gets into passing lanes, can switch across different types of players and creates possessions simply through activity. That was there when he was 15. What’s different now is what happens after the defensive play. He’s more comfortable putting the ball on the floor, stronger going downhill and capable of turning a steal or rebound into offence himself. The confidence to make a big shot has started catching up to everything else, which is why I don’t really look at Deng today and see a completely different player. I see a much more complete version of the same one. That progression became impossible to ignore at the 2025 Canada Summer Games. By then, Deng wasn’t a third option anymore. Alberta had plenty of talent, but as the tournament went along it became obvious that whenever the game reached an important moment, Deng seemed to find his way into it. That was why we named him our Maple Minute MVP. It wasn’t simply because he led Alberta in scoring and rebounding. It was because every time Alberta needed something, Deng found a way to provide it. Sometimes it was scoring. Sometimes it was a defensive stop, a rebound, a deflection or a play in transition. He had reached the point where he could impact so many different areas that even when one part of his game wasn’t working, he could still change the game somewhere else. He lived up to the hype and delivered in every big moment. Against Ontario in pool play, Deng finished with 23 points, nine rebounds and six assists. Then, in the championship game, Alberta defeated Ontario 72-69 to capture the first men’s basketball gold medal in the province’s Canada Games history, with Deng leading everyone with 22 points. That tournament was probably the moment when the potential I had seen a couple years earlier became something much more real. Then this summer, he did it again, only this time the stage was even bigger. Canada reached the U18 AmeriCup championship game against the United States. The Americans had dominated the event historically and Canada had never won it, but once again Deng found himself in the middle of the biggest moments. Canada trailed 65-62 with less than two minutes remaining when Deng stepped into a corner three and tied the game. Canada forced a turnover on the next defensive possession, Deng sprinted the floor and finished with a huge dunk to put Canada ahead 67-65. Those ended up being Canada’s final five points of the game. A three to tie it and a dunk to take the lead, both in the closing minutes against the United States with a gold medal on the line. For me, that sequence was almost a perfect snapshot of how Deng has developed. The bigger the game gets, the more he trusts his defence and his motor. He doesn’t suddenly try to become a different player because the moment is bigger. He competes, gets stops, runs the floor and finds ways to affect possessions. What has changed is that he now has enough confidence offensively to take the three when his team needs it. Deng finished that championship game with 15 points and three steals on 5-of-8 shooting, helping Canada capture its first U18 AmeriCup title. The stat line was good, but the moment was better. There are a lot of talented prospects who look great when everything is going their way. Deng has increasingly shown an ability to matter when the game becomes uncomfortable, and that is what keeps standing out to me. It was there at the Canada Games, and we saw it again against the United States. The stage keeps getting bigger and he keeps finding another way to impact the game. There is another part of Deng’s story that doesn’t show up in a box score, and that is how people around him talk about him. Former teammates rave about him. Parents who have had Deng come through their basketball ecosystem still want to support him and help him. People who knew him before the rankings changed and before the major college offers arrived continue to speak highly of him. That matters because Western Canadian basketball can become a pretty small community. Players move between programs, families spend weekends together in gyms and coaches remember the kids who come through their programs. Deng has left a lot of people in his corner. He’s well spoken and down to earth, and from everything I have seen and heard, that hasn’t changed as his profile has exploded. The basketball world around him certainly has. The offers got bigger, the national attention grew and eventually programs like Duke, Florida, Washington and Ohio State were involved. But it is important not to rewrite the story and make it seem like Deng suddenly became a prospect after leaving Alberta. He didn’t. Grande Prairie is where the story started. Edge and Genesis were where I first watched the pieces begin coming together, and by the time Deng moved to Fort Erie, he had already established himself as one of the top young players coming out of Alberta. Fort Erie gave him another stage, but it didn’t create the player. Now Ohio State gets the next version of him. There are still areas that have to develop. The jumper needs to continue becoming more consistent, and while his handle has improved dramatically from the player I watched at 15U, there is another level required to create consistently against Big Ten athletes. He’ll also need to keep getting stronger without losing the mobility and motor that have always made him different. But when I look at Deng, those aren’t the things that interest me most. It’s the direction he keeps moving. I first watched him as a 15U third option playing against 18-year-olds and thought he had a chance. Then I watched him become the player who seemed to make every important play for Alberta at the Canada Games. This summer, I watched him step into a huge three and follow it with a go-ahead dunk against the United States in the closing minutes of a gold-medal game. Now he’s headed to Ohio State. The athleticism, length and motor that caught my attention in Edmonton are still the foundation of his game. What’s changed is how much skill, confidence and responsibility he has added around them. Deng believes he can impact the game now, and more importantly, when the game gets big, he has started proving that belief is justified. That’s why Ohio State doesn’t feel like the end of this rise. It feels like the next test. I watched Deng Ngor as a 15U third option playing up against 18-year-olds in an Edmonton gym. Today, he’s an Ohio State commit, a Canada Games champion, a U18 AmeriCup champion and one of the most intriguing prospects in Canadian basketball.

Athlete Institute — Tri-City National vs. AUS Elite Jackson Hood — AUS Elite For three quarters, this one refused to separate. Neither side let the margin stretch past six or eight points, and Tri-City National kept finding ways back into it — a few stretches where they'd pulled AUS Elite within four. Then, with about five minutes left in the fourth, AUS Elite found another gear Tri-City didn't have an answer for, and a tight game turned into a comfortable one in a hurry. Tri-City's Stefan Ilic, a 6'10 forward, was the standout for the home side — court vision that advanced isn't something you expect to see from a player his size, and that's exactly the tell scouts flag. Most 6'10 forwards see the game two feet in front of them; Ilic was seeing it a possession ahead. 6’4 David Kouadio handled partial backcourt duties separately — advancing the ball, finding the right read, the kind of IQ that shows up more in the assist column than the highlight reel. Showed his range in the second half as well. Tri-City's offense ran through his decision-making as much as any single scorer's in the 2nd half. But the story of the night belonged to AUS Elite's Australian contingent, and it started with Jackson Hood. Still just 15, already 6'8"–6'9", Hood played like a kid who doesn't know his own timeline yet — the frame and the feel are both ahead of the birth year, and that gap is exactly what makes a stock riser. Point guard Sonny Maxwell ran the show with real skill, the connective piece that let the scorers around him work. And then there was Lucas Byrne — shaggy half-mullet and all — unstoppable in the second half, the player Tri-City simply had no counter for once the game tipped in AUS Elite's favor. He was the one every scout in the gym was still talking about on the way out. The fourth quarter was the whole game in miniature: AUS Elite's push around the five-minute mark turned a six-to-eight-point contest into a 20-point cushion, and unlike some leads that get run down late, this one held — AUS Elite closed it out by roughly 25. Fuel your game with BioSteel. Use code THEMAPLEMINUTE when you shop BioSteel and support independent Canadian basketball coverage at the same time. http://biosteel.ca/themapleminute The Maple Minute may earn a commission on purchases made through our BioSteel affiliate link.

There are plenty of guards who can play fast. What stood out about Domenic Lloehle at the U17 National Championship was his ability to play fast without ever looking rushed. The 6-foot Class of 2028 point guard from Loyola High School in California consistently handled pressure, got Team BC organized and understood when to attack and when to settle his team down. He also showed an ability to score within that role, averaging 16 points, 4.2 assists and 3 steals per game while shooting 53.3 percent from the field and 40 percent from three over five games. One of the more impressive parts of Lloehle's offence was how he kept defenders off balance in transition. He could push the ball and threaten to get downhill, but he was equally comfortable stopping into the pull-up jumper when defenders retreated. It gave him another answer without requiring him to play at one speed. “I describe my game as fast-paced but also controlled — control the tempo of the game, as any good point guard should,” Lloehle told The Maple Minute. That's exactly what showed up at Nationals. Lloehle consistently beat pressure with his handle and didn't allow defenders to dictate how quickly he needed to operate. On a BC roster with size and scoring around him, he didn't need to dominate the basketball to make his presence felt. He could initiate the offence, find teammates and recognize when the opportunity was there to become a scorer himself. “I like to pass, get shots for my teammates, but can also score,” he said. “Scrappy defender, you know, do whatever it takes to win.” His shooting at Nationals was particularly encouraging. Lloehle connected on 40 percent of his three-point attempts while shooting better than 53 percent overall. Five games is too small a sample to draw a definitive conclusion about his shooting, but it showed another part of his game that could become increasingly important. At 6-foot, defenders at higher levels will have more size and length. If Lloehle can consistently punish defenders for going underneath screens or backing away to contain his penetration, it creates more room for the part of his game that already stands out — his ability to change pace, get into the defence and create for others. There is room for growth as a playmaker as well. Lloehle averaged 4.2 assists against 2.6 turnovers at Nationals. The assist production was strong, and he generally looked comfortable against pressure, but continuing to improve that ratio will be important as defensive windows become smaller and opposing guards become longer and more athletic. What I liked was that mistakes or pressure rarely seemed to change the way he wanted to play. Lloehle remained willing to attack and continued trying to put his teammates in the right positions. That ability to stay composed is important for a player who projects as a true point guard rather than simply a smaller scoring guard. The same competitiveness showed defensively. Lloehle averaged three steals per game, consistently finding ways to impact possessions without the basketball. He describes himself as a scrappy defender, and that's a fair description. He competes, stays involved and understands that his contribution doesn't have to begin when the ball is in his hands. “What separates me is my tenacity to win at any cost,” Lloehle said. “Whether that's passing the ball to a shooter with a hot hand, getting a bucket, getting stops on defense, rebounds — anything the coach needs, the team needs.” That mentality has developed through a basketball path that required Lloehle to leave home at a young age. He points to the end of Grade 7, when he moved from Canada to California, as the moment basketball became something he wanted to seriously pursue. “That was the big turning point for it to become a more serious thing in my life,” he said. The move also meant being away from family, something Lloehle identifies as the biggest obstacle he's faced. He credits his mom, dad and younger brother with providing the support system that helped him adjust. Since then, his experiences at Loyola High School, with West Coast Basketball on the AAU circuit and with Team BC have exposed him to different coaches, teammates and styles of play. “Each stop shaped me as a player with the different people I'm around, the coaches, the players, to push me to be a better player in different areas that I need to improve on,” Lloehle said. Those different environments have helped shape a fairly clear identity. Lloehle isn't a point guard because he's the smallest player on the floor or simply because he's the one bringing the ball up. He wants the responsibility that comes with the position. That's also why his answer about what he wants to improve next stood out. He didn't immediately mention his jumper, handle or finishing. He talked about leadership. “Just being able to lead my team and lead them by example on defense and offense as well.” For a point guard, that's an important next step. Physically, Lloehle will have questions to answer as he moves up levels. At 6-foot, he'll increasingly face guards with more size and length, and he'll need to show that he can continue creating and finishing when those physical advantages aren't in his favour. But he already has tools that help compensate. He changes speeds. He handles pressure. He competes defensively. He showed the ability to make shots at Nationals, and he understands that running a team is about more than accumulating points and assists. The next stage of his development will be about sharpening those advantages — becoming more efficient with his possessions, proving the jumper over a larger sample and continuing to find ways to create against length. His advice to younger players provides a good indication of the mentality he'll bring to that process. “Every game is an opportunity to showcase who you are on the court,” Lloehle said. “Every time you step on that court, you want to have the mentality that you're going to win everything.” Lloehle's value isn't simply that he can play fast. It's that he can play fast while remaining under control — and as his skill set continues to develop, that's what makes Domenic Lloehle a point guard worth following.