Winnipeg’s Simon Hildebrandt exemplifies homegrown CEBL success story

Xavier Moon had scored the Winnipeg Sea Bears’ previous five points, putting them within two of the franchise’s first CEBL championship.

As he brought the ball up the court in Target Score Time, none of the 12,519 in attendance at the Canada Life Centre would have blamed the three-time MVP for holding it and attempting the winning shot on his own.

Instead, he dumped the ball into the post to DJ Burns, who quickly tossed it out to Simon Hildebrandt beyond the three-point arc.

Swish. Sea Bears win.

“As soon as that shot went up and it went in, my mind kind of went blank, kind of feeling a little bit of everything. It kind of took definitely a couple hours to kind of realize, you know, that it all actually happened,” Hildebrandt said Tuesday, three days after the ball went through the hoop.

For Hildebrandt, all that actually happened didn’t just begin with Moon’s entry pass. Instead, it started over three years earlier, when he was the first overall pick in the Canadian Elite Basketball League’s inaugural U Sports draft out of the University of Manitoba.

Winnipeg Sea Bears defeat Brampton Honey Badgers to claim 1st CEBL championship title

The 23-year-old Winnipeg native’s journey through the CEBL since has seen him win Developmental Player of the Year twice and parlay that success into a two-year NCAA career at High Point and Washington State.

He’ll play professionally overseas for the first time this coming season in Germany with BBC Bayreuth.

Call that title-winning shot, then, the climax. For now.

“It's been a long journey. I've had lots of different stops, played for lots of different teams and lots of different coaches. I think that I've learned little things in each program that I've been with that have helped me