The Ball Don’t Stop is the name of the Pro-Am basketball game Thursday at 7:30 p.m. at CARSA gym on the University of Victoria campus. And neither will the talent stop with three NBA players set to perform.
The headliner is the reigning NBA Sixth Man Award winner Payton Pritchard of the Boston Celtics. He will be joined by Mouhamed Gueye of the Atlanta Hawks and Jaylen Wells of the Memphis Grizzlies.
There will be more than enough rings to go around as the 2024 NBA-champion Pritchard will lead The Grind team, which includes Shadynn Smid and Ethan Boag from the U Sports national champion University of Victoria Vikes.
It’s been a busy summer for Cowichan Secondary Thunderbirds-grad Smid and Claremont Secondary Spartans-grad Boag, who have just returned from representing Canada in the FIBA 3x3 Youth Nations League championship in Punta Arenas, Chile, the regional qualifier for the FIBA 3x3 U-23 World Cup next month in Xiong An, China.
Also playing on The Grind squad tonight will be Zach Stone from Simon Fraser University and David Finch from the Camosun College Chargers.
Wells and Gueye will co-captain the PNW Sports Group team that includes Renoldo Robinson and Oak Bay Secondary Bays-grad Griffin Arnatt of the UVic Vikes, who along with UVic teammates Smid and Boag, represented Canada in June at the 2025 Americas’ university 3x3 championship in Brasilia, Brazil. They placed fourth after reaching the semifinals and playing in the bronze-medal game of the 13-team championship.
The Vikes foursome will complete their busy summer getting to play alongside the likes of Pritchard, Gueye and Wells, the latter who threw down 51 points in last year’s Ball Don’t Stop game at a sold-out Simon Fraser University gym. Canadian NBA guard Shaedon Sharpe of the Portland Trail Blazers had 43 points in last year in the annual fixture that features NBA players in free-wheeling games that feature a lot more offence than defence.
Isiah Thomas, fifth in NBA MVP voting when with the Boston Celtics in 2016-17, featured in the 2023 Ball Don’t Stop game at SFU along with Pritchard and former Golden State and 76ers guard De’Anthony Melton.
A high school all-star game — featuring UVic’s touted incoming freshman recruitment class of graduating Spectrum Community School standouts Justin Hinrichsen and Tyler Felt and graduating Oak Bay star Toren Franklin — tips things off tonight at 5:30 p.m. followed by the Pro-Am game. Tickets are available online at the Ball Don’t Stop website or at the door at CARSA.
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