Calculated Reactions: Top CCAA men's basketball prospects

This is part 2. Part 1, focusing on nine women's CCAA players, is here. Today we look at three men's players.

(There were no players from the ACAC who made the cut this year, nor the ACAA.)

Rob Gagliardi
6-2 guard, 2nd year, Durham College

Season	Conf	Year	Minutes	Per Game					Per 40
				PTS	REB	AST	BLK	STL	PTS	REB	eFG%	USG%	PER
2011-12	OCAA	1st	511	25.0	6.3	2.5	0.3	3.5	29.4	7.4	57.6%	30.4%	38.9
2012-13	CIS	2nd	388	10.2	2.7	1.0	0.2	1.6	20.9	5.5	53.4%	27.0%	23.2

Not surprising that a NEDA grad and former U19 national team member is first on the list, is it?

Gagliardi, now 22, committed to Canisius for the 2009-10 season but did not play, coming back north of the border (well, west) and ending up with Durham College in Oshawa (he's from neighbouring Whitby).

And in 2011-12, he led Ontario in scoring and steals, nearly shooting an effective 58% while clearly driving the Lords' offence. I'd like to say the guy made an all-star team but apparently he didn't even snag a second-team OCAA East spot (not enough games played?). He also didn't make the rookie team although he should be eligible; according to Durham this was his first year of eligibility.


Richard Townsend-Gant
6-5 forward, 4th year, Vancouver Island University

Season	Conf	Year	Minutes	Per Game					Per 40
				PTS	REB	AST	BLK	STL	PTS	REB	eFG%	USG%	PER
2008-09	KJCCC	1st	n/a	5.6	2.3	1.1	0.2	0.3	n/a	n/a	55.8%	n/a	n/a
2009-10	KJCCC	2nd	n/a	10.4	4.0	1.2	0.3	0.3	n/a	n/a	55.8%	n/a	n/a
2011-12	PACWEST	3rd	493	17.6	9.3	1.8	0.7	1.0	22.9	12.0	52.6%	32.7%	32.0
2012-13	CIS	4th	375	7.7	4.1	0.7	0.3	0.5	16.4	8.7	48.6%	29.1%	16.6

It's a good thing I waited a few weeks to run this piece, because about a month ago, friend of the blog Ray Bala noted that Townsend-Gant was listed as an early entrant into the 2012 NBA draft, to be held on June 28, and he did much of the legwork on filling in some biographical details on the Portland, Oregon native, who played for Coffeyville Community College in the Kansas Jayhawk Community College Conference for two years before transferring to VIU.

Townsend-Gant does not appear to have played anywhere in 2010-11, and his published statistics with CCC don't include minutes played, meaning we're left with per-game and shooting-percentage numbers for his early days. As for his Canadian numbers, his usage rate at VIU was even higher than Gagliardi's at Durham, and correspondingly his numbers were a little bit lower. He did grab over a fifth of all rebounds while he was on the floor, one of only four players to do that in the CCAA this year in 400 minutes or more, and certainly there aren't many other bigs knocking down 20 threes on the year (he was 20/68, or 29%).

Overall he profiles as an above-average player (projected CIS PER of 16.6) but a) he has only two years remaining, not up to four, and b) there is a fairly significant gap between Gagliardi and the other names on this list. Or, for that matter, between him and some underclassmen already in CIS who would have better (if not good) arguments, NBA draft-wise.

Anyway, as Can Ball Ray says, it's very unlikely the guy gets anywhere with the NBA this year, "but I'm definitely not rooting against him. Long live the longshot!"



Khalid Abdel-Gabar
6-2 guard, 4th year, Sheridan College

Season	Conf	Year	Minutes	Per Game					Per 40
				PTS	REB	AST	BLK	STL	PTS	REB	eFG%	USG%	PER
2011-12	OCAA	3rd	621	20.4	5.4	2.3	0.2	2.7	23.6	6.3	52.8%	26.4%	29.5
2012-13	CIS	4th	472	10.1	3.0	1.1	0.1	1.4	17.1	5.1	49.2%	23.4%	15.6

And here's someone who did make an OCAA all-star team. 2011-12 was his third year, and we don't have numbers for anything OCAA-related before that.

A 15.6 projected PER is not world-beating, but it's worth noting he put up 20 points on a Final 8 team in December, albeit on 9/22 shooting, and even if the Rams' release calls him "Khalud Abdel".(He's also been called "Khalid Abdel-Gabal" by the Ottawa Citizen. Names are hard, you guys.) Here's that game against Ryerson, which he and the Bruins lost, though they did beat Guelph and Waterloo at that tournament.