Basketball League Brampton A's Announce First Foreign Player, Dipanjot Singh

[singhbj singh]

Basketball League Brampton A's Announce First Foreign Player, Dipanjot Singh NBL Network | 12 Sep 2013 01:00 PM GMT | Orangeville, Canada

ORANGEVILLE, Ontario. A week after adding two talented and versatile Canadians (Evaldas Zabas & Jameson Tipping) to the roster, the Brampton A's announced the signing of their first foreign player in American Dipanjot Singh.

Singh, born in the Punjabi region of India and raised in Evanston, IL comes with an amazing resume of perseverance, vision, and ultimately success. A solid High School player in Illinois, Singh had virtually no scholarship offers to play basketball at the university level. He took his love of basketball to NCAA Division I, University of Illinois at Chicago, where he would "do anything to stay in the game" and offered to become a volunteer student manager (washing uniforms, sweeping the floor, and keeping stats in practice.) While playing pick up one day the Head Coach walked in and saw him doing well against his varsity players and asked him to be on the "scout squad" a non-roster spot, just for practice.

In addition to doing well and a roster spot opening up over the summer, he was moved into a non-scholarship position of a walk-on by then coach Jimmy Collins. This role allowed him to dress, be on the bench, and travel with the team.

In his final season at UIC, new coach Howard Moore saw his potential and in response to a losing streak decided to put him in a game. He scored 10 points off the bench against Cleveland State University led by 2 time NBA Champion Norris Cole of the Miami Heat. Singh ultimately became a starter and one of the leading scorers on the team. He scored 17 points against the Horizon Leagues top team UW Milwaukee in his first career start.

Dipanjot graduated and with one year of eligibility left took his talents to the University of Mass at Lowell (an NCAA Division II powerhouse), where he would lead them in to the NCAA tournament and work on his Post Grad Degree under head coach Greg Herenda.

A's head coach David Magley couldn't be more excited about Singh, "Dipanjot came to a tryout in Indiana and really surprised us by how well he could shoot the ball and his overall 'feel for the game.' Like our first two signees (Evaldas and Jameson) he is not a 'position' he is a 'player' and as such can fill many roles on our roster."

Magley was unaware of his story until after he was signed and then became even more enthused, "It is rare that superstars live up to expectations but for a young man to go from student manager, to practice player, to walk-on, and starter of a good NCAA Division I team is almost never heard of. He had a dream and simply would not quit until it was fulfilled. I am certain that playing professionally was something almost too far off to even think of, yet here he is. This type of character on a roster is invaluable and I am completely confident that he will have a positive impact on all around him."

For his part, the humble Singh, puts it this way, "I'm blessed to play professional basketball with the Brampton A's franchise in my rookie year. I am thankful for Coach David Magley for finding me and giving me this opportunity. I am grateful to the owner James Tipping and everyone in the Brampton A's organization. My childhood dream was to play professional basketball and it has come true, and one day I plan to write a book about my journey. Maybe a NBL Canada Basketball Championship can be part of the story too. I am blessed and thankful for this opportunity."

The Brampton A's will begin their inaugural season November 1st and will be playing their games in the Powerade Centre and will be competing in the NBL, Canada's only professional basketball league. The NBL is beginning its third full season and has teams in Windsor, London, Ottawa, Mississauga, Moncton, Halifax, PEI, and Saint John as well as Brampton.

Source - http://www.amritbanitv.com/News/Basketball-League-Brampton-As-Announce-First-Foreign-Player-Dipanjot-Singh#sthash.IqvMI5at.dpuf

[Wingz23]

BRAP!!!

:D

Fateh

[PSingh13]

There are better Punjabi players out there. Hopefully we see one of them making it into NBA.

This signing is nothing more a marketing signing to get Sikhs in Brampton to come to their games.