Ooks men’s basketball assistant coach Greg Francis is becoming the Head of Basketball for Canada’s newly formed professional basketball league, the Canadian Elite Basketball League (CEBL), which will launch their inaugural season this upcoming May.
Greg Francis, former NAIT Assistant Coach and new Head of Basketball for the Canadian Elite Basketball League.
Coach Francis came to NAIT to assist a life-long friend, Ooks’ head coach Mike Connolly. Here he helped develop some of the Ooks’ top athletes. Francis is also the manager for High Performance at Basketball Canada. He has a deep pedigree in basketball with years as a player and a coach.
He is leaving NAIT to become the Head of Basketball for the Canadian Elite Basketball League. Francis will be in charge of a lot of the basketball duties for the newly formed league.
Francis will be using his basketball knowledge to help grow the league including getting the league FIBA certifications and finding head coaches and GMs.
This league will be uniquely Canadian. Just like the CFL, teams will be required to have a certain number of Canadians on the rosters. Teams will have the chance to have international players. But the ratio of Canadian to international must tilt heavily towards the Canadian side. The CEBL will showcase the rising Canadian basketball talent.
The CEBL will try to bring a party- like atmosphere to their games. They are expected to have tons of music, cheerleaders and half-time shows. Along with encouraging tailgating pre-game.
Edmonton will have their own team in the CEBL. They will be known as the Edmonton Stingers. The Stingers will be one of the original six teams in the newly formed CEBL.
The league has set to open in May of 2019. The Stingers will play 10 home games in their first season. Their home will be played out of the Edmonton Expo Centre.
The five other teams in their inaugural CEBL season are the Fraser Valley Bandits, The Saskatchewan Rattlers, The Guelph Nighthawks, The Hamilton Honey Badgers and the Niagara River Lions. There will be 20 games in the season for each team. The season will be four months, played throughout the summer.
Peter Go
