The Crown League is back. For the third straight year, Toronto and Nike have come together to showcase basketball at Ryerson University’s Kerr Hall. There are three games between the six teams involved from 6:30pm till about 11:00pm for five weeks.
They showed up. They showed out. They showed the city how it’s done.
Claim your #CrownLeague seat for Week 2. https://t.co/I1Lc9JORJl pic.twitter.com/iE8Wx00Zjx— Nike Toronto (@NikeToronto) July 1, 2017
Unlike the two previous editions, the league is now sanctioned NCAA, meaning Division I student-athletes are eligible to play.
To start this week’s proceedings, 1 LOVE T.O. defeated the Northern Kings 69-58, with 2017 NBA G-League champion with the Raptors 905, Brady Heslip, putting on an absolute clinic with 28 points on 17 shots. He had a fun edge to him all night, even getting a little boisterous after a couple of stops on defense. The Kings defenders tried everything to stop him, but to no avail. They resorted to double-teams to get the ball out of his hands, but it just led to layups and dunks for his teammates .Heslip ended the night with ‘Player of the Week’ honors as well for his performance.
Brady Heslip drops 28 points and is the #CrownLeague Player of the Week. https://t.co/I1Lc9JxgkL pic.twitter.com/2C7SYGvp0o
— Nike Toronto (@NikeToronto) July 1, 2017
Duane Notice out of Woodbridge led all scorers for the Kings with 13, but all eyes were on Nickiel Alexander-Walker. The 18-year old got the crowd’s attention a few times courtesy of his quickness and ability to break down the defense, but couldn’t take the lid off the basket. His 10 points came on 3-for-13 shooting, and he’ll be hoping to shake off that rust as the league goes on.
In the second game, 6Man easily disposed of CIA Bounce 64-46, after the Bounce squad came out cold as ice early. They managed just 12 points in the first half, and never really got going till they went into a full court press late to force some turnovers and get some easy buckets. Shouts to Akil Augustine for trying his best to keep the crowd in it with his AND1 style play-by-play.
The final game was between last year’s finalists, ACE and M.A.D.E., with the latter getting a bit of revenge in a hard fought 79-74 victory. The squads featured the likes of Myck Kabongo, Junior Cadougan, and Jermaine Anderson, and you could feel the vibe of two teams that had battled for the title before.
All in all, it’s a good opportunity to support the local talent for free on a Friday night. All you need to do is sign up here to attend.
