G-League player Zeke Upshaw dies two days after collapsing on the court

What's the story?

Two days after collapsing on the court towards the end of a Grand Rapids Drive NBA G-League Game, it was announced that guard Zeke Upshaw died on Monday. Upshaw was 26 years old.

In case you didn't know...

Upshaw went undrafted and was currently in his second season with the Grand Rapids Drive. He played three seasons at Illinois State before transferring to Hofstra to play his final season.

He played in Slovenia and Luxembourg before signing a deal to play with the Grand Rapids Drive in the NBA G-League in 2016.

The heart of the matter

The following statement was provided to The Drive from Zeke's mother Jewel Upshaw. Take a look at the tweet below:

Statement from Jewel Upshaw, Zeke's mother: “After continued efforts from the medical team at Spectrum Health, Zeke made his transition at 11:16 am. To family, friends, teammates, coaches, fans & confidants, thank you for your prayers and support during this most difficult time. pic.twitter.com/1AutFtIFwU

— Grand Rapids Drive (@grdrive) March 26, 2018

The Grand Rapids Drive, who are the G-League affiliate of the Detroit Pistons, also provided a statement on Monday where they described Upshaw as having a "warm personality and was a tremendous representative of our organization both on and off the court."

With less than a minute remaining in The Drive's game against the Long Island Nets, Upshaw would fall to the floor. He was removed from the court on a stretcher and taken to a nearby hospital.

In that game, Upshaw scored 11 points to help The Drive secure a playoff spot in the regular season finale with a 101-99 win.

On the season, Upshaw was averaging 8.5 points per game while averaging 19.9 minutes per game.

What's next?

At the time of this writing, details for the memorial service were not available. You can follow the Grand Rapids Drive on Twitter, @grdrive, for the latest information.

Author's take

Condolences go out to Upshaw's family in this very tough time. It's definitely a tough thing to go through when someone so young passes away while on the court.