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SARNIA, Ontario — It’s easy for us to give out awards, but why not put the power in the hands of the people who watch the games on a regular basis?

It’s time for the fans to let their voices be heard.

On the heels of a successful debut at the end of the 2018-19 season, one that saw thousands of votes come through Twitter polls over the month of March, the Second Annual CCR Canada Player of the Year Fan Vote is back for another go.

The goal is to get fans involved and to give them an outlet to showcase their love and appreciation for players from their favourite program one last time before the season comes to a close with the conclusion of the national championship tournaments.

For both men’s and women’s basketball at both the U Sports and the CCAA levels, we have hand-selected a field of 64 student-athletes who will go head-to-head in a bracket-style tournament to ultimately decide who is the Player of the Year on a national scale.

We have selected at least one student-athlete from each team to have every program represented at least once in the bracket. In some cases, programs will have two representatives to boost the number of participants to an even 64. The goal is to give fans of every program a chance to showcase their support while bringing attention to the level of talent from across the country.

In order to qualify for the brackets, players must have played in ~65% of their team’s games so far this season AND be eligible for the second half of the season.

Players have been randomly placed into head-to-head match-ups in the First Round, and head-to-head voting will determine who advances to the next round, and so on. Rounds will pass and players will advance until there’s only one player left standing.

That player will be crowned the CCR Canada Fan Voted Player of the Year for the 2019-20 season.

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Voting will begin on Monday, February 3rd at 9:30 a.m. EST. Polls will be run through our Twitter and Instagram accounts for each match-up. Each round on Twitter will run for 72 hours, allowing for the same amount of time per polls.

We can only post the polls so fast.

Then, when the brackets have been cut down to 16 players each, we will open voting through Instagram, as well. We will post a poll on the Second Day of each round on our story, allowing fans and players alike another opportunity to vote for their favourites. These polls will run for 24 hours.

The totals will be added together and the winners will advance in each round until there is only one player left standing per bracket.

After trying different voting methods throughout the four years in the NCAA, and last season in Canada, this provides the highest level of transparency for voting totals with each passing round.

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Last year’s winners are as follows:

CCAA Women’s Basketball Fan-Voted Player of the Year: Julia Pavlik, Redeemer Royals

CCAA Men’s Basketball Fan-Voted Player of the Year: Geoff Lavoie, St. Thomas Tommies

U Sports Women’s Basketball Fan-Voted Player of the Year: Carly Steer, Windsor Lancers

U Sports Men’s Basketball Fan-Voted Player of the Year: Nathan Barker, Memorial Sea-hawks

Canadian Women’s Basketball Player of the Year: Maria Carroll, MSVU Mystics

Canadian Men’s Basketball Player of the Year: Nathan Barker, Memorial Sea-hawks

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Here are the brackets for all four contests that will open up Monday morning:

U Sports Men’s Basketball Player of the Year Fan Vote

U Sports Women’s Basketball Player of the Year Fan Vote

CCAA Men’s Basketball Player of the Year Fan Vote

CCAA Women’s Basketball Player of the Year Fan Vote

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Follow along with us on Twitter (@CCR_Canada) and Instagram (@CollegeCourtReportCanada) for more updates and to get your votes in starting on Monday!

– T. Bennett