Ontario Player of the Week Feb. 26 – March 4

This week’s Ontario Player of the Week goes to the 2018 Big 12 Freshman of the Year and Pickering native, University of Oklahoma guard Shaina Pellington.

Pellington is in her first season of collegiate basketball and is a regular starter in the rotation for the Sooners, which is a rare achievement for a freshman at a Division 1 school.

The 5’7” Pellington, according to Prospect Nation, was the #5 international prospect and the #1 ranked guard coming out of high school attending Dunbarton in Pickering before transferring to prep at Durham Elite in the OSBA. She was ranked the 23rd overall among guards according to ESPN recruiting. She fielded multiple offers before accepting her offer from the University of Oklahoma.

Pellington brought a lot of experience on the international side of the game into school with her participation in the FIBA U17 World Championships in 2016, where she averaged 8 points and 4 rebounds. Pellington also helped Canada bring home a gold medal at the U16 FIBA Americas Tournament in 2015, an historic win for Canada as the first gold medal for any Canadian women’s team at the FIBA Americas tournament.

In her first season at Oklahoma, Pellington has been a starter since the first tip-off, establishing herself as a premier player for the Sooners immediately. She has averaged 12.8 points per game help the Sooners to a 16-14 regular season record. They hope to have impressed enough to earn themselves a spot in the NCAA Tournament after being eliminated in the quarter-finals of the Big 12 conference tournament by Texas Christian University.

Tune in next week for another edition of the Ontario Player of the Week as the NCAA basketball tournaments in both men’s and women’s brackets are approaching fast!