Miguel Tomley ready to put BC on the map at Biosteel All Canadian Game
Miguel Tomley’s terrific senior season just added a cherry on top. After leading the entire 2018 BC High School Basketball Championships in scoring, on Monday March 19th it was announced he was invited to the 2018 Biosteel All Canadian Basketball Game.
“My AAU coach Pasha Bains texted me” said Tomley on how he found out he was invited. “We were talking about it before, and I’ve been trying to get in the main game since grade ten. Usually they don’t take grade ten [players], they take grade eleven and twelve [players]. He told me this time that the head director of the Biosteel game had texted him and told him that I was invited.”
The Biosteel game is in its fourth year, and features 24 of the top high school players from across Canada. Tomley is the only player competing in British Columbia to be invited to the event. For him, it’s an opportunity to represent the BC basketball community and one he does not take lightly.
“You always want to put on for your province, especially with the majority of the kids being from Ontario” he said. “I definitely want to go out there and put a name out for myself and for BC basketball for that matter.
A lot of people have low expectations I’d say for BC basketball because we only have one guy in the game, and only guy in the game last year and the year before that. With the majority coming from Ontario, its big for me to go out there and put BC on the map.”
On a personal level, the opportunity to play on a huge stage is one that he is looking forward to. After decommitting from Cal Baptist, he will be going to a prep school next year in the hopes of finding the right fit at the next level.
“[I want to go to] a school where I can hopefully make an immediate impact” he explained. “I don’t want to pick a school that’s way out of my level and I don’t think there are a lot of school like that. I think that I can compete at any type of level, but at the same time I want to be able to go in and play right off the bat and play 30-40 minutes a game.”
Tomley’s final season with Tamanawis was nothing short of sensational. After leading his team to the Fraser Valley championship, they finished third at provincials with Tomley breaking the single tournament scoring record in the process. To the surprise of some, he was not named MVP of the provincial tournament.
“I really let everyone else decide for me” said Tomley on if he felt he was deserving of the award. “We all got our own opinions, and some people think that I shouldn’t have got it, some people think I should have. Obviously I’m going to say I should have got it, but it’s good for the MVP that he got it — he won, it’s only fair.
But it’s a little saddening that Kelly Olynyk and a few others guys have got it coming third and fourth, and considering I was the leading scorer of the tournament now and broke the record, it’s kind of sad that I wasn’t in that discussion. But it is what it is.”
The game will also be a chance for Tomley to reunite with some former teammates. He spent his grade eleven year at Orangeville Prep in Ontario, and played with the likes of fellow invitees Keshaun Saunders and Junior Farquhar.
“I talk to them daily a lot of them” Tomley said. “So we’ve talked about the game and we don’t know who is on who’s team yet, so it’s going to be a bit different. But we’ll see. If I’m playing against them I’m going at them, but if they’re on my team then that’s good.”
Tomley will leave on Friday and attend practices beforehand. The game will take place on Monday, April 9th at the University of Toronto’s Goldring Centre for High Performance Sport. Tip-off is at 5 p.m. PT and will be broadcast on TSN.
Written by: Nick Bondi