Tickets are available at the Ball Don’t Stop website. The roster for the game at CARSA will be announced next week
The Ball Don’t Stop pro-am basketball tournament is coming to CARSA Gym on the University of Victoria campus Aug. 7.
The ball may not stop, but it certainly does drop, and at a frenetic pace.
Jaylen Wells of the Memphis Grizzlies of the NBA put in 51 points and Canadian NBA guard Shaedon Sharpe of the Portland Trail Blazers 43 points in last year’s Ball Don’t Stop game at a sold-out Simon Fraser University Gym.
Canadian Chris Boucher, who played for the Toronto Raptors, and Bones Hyland, who played in the NBA for the Nuggets, Clippers and Timberwolves, went off in the 2024 Toronto Ball Don’t Stop game in a contest that also featured former Raptors guard Norm Powell of the Miami Heat.
This year’s Toronto game is on Aug. 1 to be followed by the B.C. tilt six days later in Victoria. Tickets are available online at the Ball Don’t Stop website. The roster for the game at CARSA will be announced next week.
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 current Celtics player Payton Pritchard and former Golden State and 76ers guard De’Anthony Melton.
Other NBA players to have performed in the annual Ball Don’t Stop game include Trey Burke, Utah Jazz forward KJ Martin, former Grizzlies and 76ers centre Kenneth Lofton Jr. and Toronto Raptors standout Scottie Barnes.
The Victoria pro-am game is expected to feature four players from the defending U Sport national champion University of Victoria Vikes.
The rosters haven’t been announced, but returning Vikes player Ethan Boag out of Claremont Secondary, Griffin Arnatt out of Oak Bay, Shadynn Smid out of Cowichan Secondary and the explosive Renoldo Robinson from Montreal represented Canada last month in the 2025 Americas’ university three-on-three basketball championship in Brasilia, Brazil. They placed fourth after reaching the semifinals and playing in the bronze-medal game of the 13-team championship.
There will also be two Island versus Lower Mainland senior and junior boys games featuring top upcoming talent, including the Vikes’ touted incoming freshman recruitment class that includes graduating Spectrum Secondary standouts Justin Hinrichsen and Tyler Felt, and graduating Oak Bay star Toren Franklin.
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