Guelph Nighthawks add French guard to roster
GUELPH – The Guelph Nighthawks have signed French guard Kyliann Rotardier for the upcoming Canadian Elite Basketball League season.
Rotardier will join the Nighthawks from Orleans Loiret of LNB Pro A, the top league in France. The 20-year-old played six games with the squad after being called up from the organizations under-21 team.
He averaged 13.3 points per game in 26 games with the U21 squad after averaging 13.4 with the same team last season.
Rotardier becomes the Nighthawks’ international player, a new designation the CEBL introduced this year. Each team is allowed a single player who is not either from Canada or the U.S.
The addition of Rotardier (6-foot-3) brings Guelph’s roster to 13 including five returnees — guards Ahmed Hill (6-5), Cat Barber (6-1) and Michael Bryson (6-4) and forwards Jabari Craig (6-10) and Matt Neufeld (6-11).
The newcomers are guards A.J. Lawson (6-6), Khalid Abdel-Gabar (6-2), Rotardier, Sean Miller-Moore (6-4) and Stef Smith (6-2) and forwards A.J. Hess (6-7), Julian Roche (7-0) and Trayvon Reid (7-2).
All are Canadians on the roster except Rotardier and the U.S. contingent of Hill, Hess, Barber, Bryson and Reed.
The Nightwaks players have been playing throughout the world this season with Hess playing with BC Rilski Sportist of the Bulgarian NBL league, Lawson and Barber with College Park Skyhawks on the NBA G-League while Barber also suited up for three games with the NBA’s Atlanta Hawks, Craig with the Fort Wayne Mad Ants and Motor City Cruise of the NBA G-League and K-W Titans of the National Basketball League of Canada, Roche with Simon Fraser University where he was the school’s male athlete of the year, Abdel-Gabar with Al Nasr of the Saudi Premier League, Bryson with PVSK Panthers of the Hungarian championship league, Miller-Moore with Grand Canyon University, Smith with NCAA’s St. John’s University and Reed with BC Dinamo Tbilisi of the Georgian Super Liga.
The Nighthawks also selected a pair of players from the Atlantic conference in the U Sports draft in 6-0 guard Elijah Miller from the University of Prince Edward Island and 6-6 forward Ibrahima Doumbouya from the University of New Brunswick.
The Nighthawks are to open their season May 26 with a home game against the expansion Scarborough Shooting Stars. Game time at the Sleeman Centre is 7 p.m.
The league has grown by three teams since the end of last season with the addition of Scarborough, Montreal Alliance and Newfoundland Growlers.
They bring the total in the league to 10 as they join the Nighthawks, Edmonton Stingers, Fraser Valley Bandits, Hamilton Honey Badgers, Niagara River Lions, Ottawa BlackJacks and Saskatchewan Rattlers.
- Guelph Sports Journal