Carleton Ravens’ dominance ties into crying need to reshape CIS basketball

With the CIS Final 8 tipping off Friday, the biggest question is not if the Carleton Ravens will win, but by how much and how thoroughly. And whether the Ravens' dominance of Canadian university basketball continues unabated is as much a sign of a sport that needs to adapt as it is a testament to coach Dave Smart, his players and staff.

Even in a single-elimination event, betting against the Ravens raising their eighth national title in 10 seasons come Sunday night seems about as wise as thinking the Washington Generals are due. These Ravens might be as good as they have ever been across the past dozen seasons. Within CIS play, they are 31-0 with an average winning margin of 37.6 points. That tops the all-time NCAA Division I mark of 30.3 that the John Wooden-guided UCLA Bruins set 40 years ago, although it's pears to pomegranates to compare Canadian and U.S. collegiate records. Small wonder that learned observers are saying it would take a miracle for Carleton to lose.

"They have [forward Tyson] Hinz, who was player of the year last year as a sophomore and [point guard Phil] Scrubb, who's player of the year this year as a sophomore," says Lakehead Thunderwolves coach Scott Morrison, whose team has dealt Carleton two of its four losses in CIS play since 2009. "And Hinz didn't take a step back. When you have the two best players in the country and execute so well with the older guys they have, that's tough to beat. You just have to try to stay level and hope they miss some shots at the end.

"It would be tough to be more disciplined or execute better than their teams have in the past, but maybe they have more talent," adds Morrison, whose No. 4-seeded Thunderwolves could face Carleton in the semifinal on Saturday.

Scrubb — "if he doesn't play on the national team, there should be an investigation," says former Canadian national team coach Ken Shields, who coached the star guard's father Lloyd Scrubb during the Victoria Vikes' reign of the 1980s — might be the X factor that sets Carleton apart from its five-in-a-row era from 2003-07. That team's talismanic lead guard, Osvaldo Jeanty, was also a CIS player of the year. But this season the 19-year-old Scrubb shot 55 per cent from the floor even though half his shots come from three-point land. The only nit anyone can find with these Ravens is that the Ontario University Athletics East division is weak. That's not even in their control.

"They don't have the dominant guy inside, but Phil can do a little more than Os [Jeanty] could do with the ball and they surround him with three-point shooters," says McGill coach David DeAveiro, who guided the rival Ottawa Gee-Gees in that '03-07 period. "Phil Scrubb is shooting the ball at 57 per cent from three. That's unheard of. To do what he's doing, I don't know if we've ever seen that in this country. You basically have two players of the year and a surrounding cast of fifth-year guys who've been through the wars with [Elliot] Thompson, [Willy] Manigat and [defensive ace Cole] Hobin along with [fourth-year forward] Kyle Smendziuk. They just keep going."

The rub is that a dynasty is supposed to elevate a league's profile, bringing out bandwagon hoppers and the Anybody But Them crowd. How much is too much, though? In the 1950s, major-league baseball relied on the Yankees dynasty and when it fell, baseball slipped behind the NFL in popularity and never recovered. As Morrison puts it, "The NBA thinks the Miami Heat is a good thing because everyone's cheering against them, but if the Heat win the next eight NBA championships, I'm not sure how good that will be."

There's no connection but it needs to be pointed out Carleton's era has coincided with CIS hoops struggling to hold on to its niche. That is the elephant in the room.

Not on television

The Final 8, for the first time in relevant memory, is not being aired live on national TV. (Streaming Sports Network Canada is webcasting the whole tournament, which begins at 11 a.m. ET Friday; Eastlink TV is broadcasting the semis and final, which will be available in certain regions.) Few teams pack campus gyms. And close to 100 Canadians are playing in NCAA Division I men's basketball. Fairly or not, that contributes to the perception of an afterthought product, even though the CIS game under FIBA rules is faster-paced and more wide-open than the NCAA's, where overcoached walk-it-up-athons are sometimes the norm. That's why many who follow the game closely believe a new model is needed, with the creation of an elite division and sports scholarships.

This isn't being written as some argument that Carleton should leave CIS or be in the NCAA Tournament, to borrow a favourite hobby horse of at least one Ottawa columnist. This is a case for CIS basketball, for the powers that be to stop undervaluing it. There is a significant opportunity lost in just expecting all of the country's top hoops talent will go south and develop in a realm where coaches and players are expendable. It's not for nothing that, as Shields notes, when Canada punched its weight in basketball at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics, 14 of the 24 female and male hoopsters were Canadian-trained. During this Olympic cycle, the two senior national teams had only one CIS grad, former Carleton star Aaron Doornekamp. Neither team has qualified for London, although the women's squad has an excellent shot at doing so this summer.

In Shields' mind, it is perfectly justifiable why those who want to watch the Final 8 on a big-screen TV this weekend will need to run a HDMI cable from a laptop computer. He has advocated for introducing full-fledged sports scholarships in CIS, having written an academic paper on the topic two years ago. He's been working feverishly to try to convince the right people the investment is well worth it, even in a time when the attitude toward public spending is decidedly anti-risk.

"Since then [2010] there's been a process that's looked at addressing the issue," he says. "But the process has slowed down to a snail's pace. We thought we had momentum. I can't say much because I'm involved in it.

"If we don't address this problem … it's not just basketball," adds Shields. "There's 2,000 Canadian kids at U.S. institutions and we haven't provided them with a competitive alternative. We have to get our act together. If we want to have national television contracts, if we want to have full gyms, we have to have our best players — at least a significant portion of them — staying here. It's not rocket science."

In Shields' view, that means tiering CIS basketball. There is a lot of resistance to the idea. The 43 schools across Canada competing (45 next season) are spread out far enough geographically as it is. But the thought of getting everyone to commit to it is too far fetched. There are definitely some who would.

"There has to be an elite division of some sort," Shields says. "There has to be comparable coaching and development opportunities. What I believe is we need a system that's dedicated toward athlete development so these athletes would be able to come to a division in Canada where the system is committed to developing international-level players over their time in university. And their goal is to be international-level players over a five-, six-year period."

'Nothing stopping us from going on a 10-month program'

That means doing it differently than the NCAA. What many don't realize is there is one advantage of competing in CIS which hasn't been fully publicized. A coach such as Smart has more time to train his/her players. The NCAA in its infinite wisdom has strict limits on it. Smart and other coaches who are raising the bar for CIS basketball don't work under that. Many also have a club system for high schoolers that helps them get an idea of what to expect when they hit university. Down south, that would be considered improper contact with a prospective recruit. Moreover, CIS' five-year eligibility rule means an extra year for a player to mature.

In other words, the seeds to have the model Shields wants are already sown. It's just time to make it official.

"The coaches would have to dedicate themselves to that [developing international-level players] and the people who do that will win the most games," he says. "What happens now is the focus is on the next week's opponent.

"It is totally that way in the NCAA. Their whole focus is the next opponent. The athlete development is a side issue and they're totally restricted in the number of contact hours they have with those athletes. They can't train them in the summer. Here there's nothing stopping us from going on a 10-month program.

"They [the NCAA] wouldn't let him [Smart] even come close to putting in the volume of time he puts in," Shields adds.

'Blindly go to the States'

Perhaps CIS basketball needs an advocacy group. Put out brochures. Have a website specifically dedicated to persuading players to stay home. Hold info sessions in cities across the country. Of course, there would need to be the prospect of a scholarship to back it all up. (CIS does have some form of student-athlete scholarships.)

Whatever changes come about likely aren't going to keep everyone north of the border. But up-and-coming coaches like the Alberta Golden Bears' Greg Francis and Ryerson Rams' Roy Rana, who have both guided national teams, note there's work to be done to overcome the mentality that anything American must be better.

"You just don't like to see a Canadian kid blindly go to the States without looking at all other options without objectively looking to see what's better for them," says Francis, whose Golden Bears are the No. 2 seed this weekend.

"We got to start getting that word out. The proof is in the pudding. Dave [Smart] puts in a ton of time and there are coaches who are putting in a ton of time in the off-season. There's programs that you can put in that you just can't do down in the States. Our relationship is more year-round without the rules in the NCAA that you can't work with a player year-round. Not every coach is doing that, but there's a few who are using that time to create a great environment for their players.

"It's tough for an 18-year-old to see that advantage," adds Francis, who coached Canada's junior men's team last summer. "They may just think they go to a school and they just get better."

Rana's turnaround with Ryerson is one small success story. His young Rams, who face Alberta Friday, are at the Final 8 a year ahead of schedule thanks to their young trio of point guard Jahmal Jones, southpaw swingman Aaron Best and power forward Bjorn Michaelsen. Each had Division I interest but threw their lot in with a coach who's committed to something long-term at the downtown Toronto university, which is set to move into a new venue.

"A reality is that for some kids, the opportunity to play for five years is more meaningful than playing at a smaller Division I school in the U.S.," says Rana, in his third season with the Rams after building a Toronto high school powerhouse at Eastern Commerce. "Sometimes that's a risky manoeuvre with the way coaches can change, the way recruiting works in the States."

Rana notes that a tiered system would be worth it "if some scholarship money can be provided to keep athletes in Canada." He does strike one note of caution, pointing out that this might reduce the possibility of a underdog team going on an improbable post-season run that can capture a campus' attention. When the Rams qualified for their first Final 8 in 13 years last weekend in Waterloo, they had five busloads of supporters in the stands creating a home environment for them. Still, he notes, "The value of keeping more of our best players home needs to be looked at.

So, how to beat Carleton?

Meantime, the 31-0 Ravens begin their title chase Friday vs. huge underdog Acadia (1:15 p.m. ET, SSN Canada). They're not going to win every year, but what often goes unmentioned is that when even Carleton loses at the nationals, it's usually by a close margin. Their four season-ending losses this millennium have been by a grand total of nine points. Three were one-possession games, including a double-OT defeat to Acadia in the 2008 semifinal and a buzzer-beater loss to McMaster in a first-round game in '01, Smart's first trip to nationals.

The rest of the country's best hope seems to be that Carleton just has an uncharacteristically poor shooting night. They were 2-for-17 from three-point land in the 2010 semifinal loss to the eventual champion Saskatchewan Huskies and only lost by four. In that Acadia game, the Ravens shot below 40 per cent. The Axemen shot 55 percent from the floor from halftime on and still needed two OTs.

Everyone knows the Carleton formula. Play dog-on-a-bone defence and basically tell opponents to not even think about crashing the boards. Work for high-percentage shots, the layups and open threes. In league play, the Ravens hit 44.7 per cent of their threes; many teams would be lucky to have one player hit at that rate. That all flows from Smart and his assistant coaches making sure preparation meets opportunity.

McGill's DeAveiro was on staff with Smart at last year's Pan-Am Games and came away marvelling with how he breaks down film.

"There's not a thing that Dave misses when he watches the videotape or when he sees the game live," DeAveiro says. "He makes sure that his kids are totally prepared. There's nothing they're going to see in a game that they haven't prepared for. I've never watched a guy put together a tape that quickly on a computer until I watched him at the Pan-American Games. Highlights of the other team's offence and defence. He would do that so quickly. He knew what he was looking for, the small things that players don't see."

By tournament time, everything is second nature. One pattern in Ravens games over the years is that an opponent might find something that works in the first half. Then the teams return from the dressing rooms and that edge has disappeared.

"Carleton runs the ball screen, and people say to me 'how do you defend their ball screen?' " says DeAveiro. "And I say, 'you can't.' He'll eat you up. You have to try to do it three or four different ways because Dave's that smart and his kids are that smart. That's the thing, in-game adjustments. He's surrounded himself with a coaching staff who are going to push him and challenge him. They're not yes-guys. Dave's a highly competitive guy. You take a second off or a possession off, he'll let you know about it. He mentally pushes kids to go beyond their comfort zone. Some kids may break, but the kids he has know what to expect."

Meantime, those who care about CIS basketball know exactly what to expect around March. Another Final 8 that Carleton is expected to win. That's not a problem. It's a symptom of the old Canadian sports mentality of being afraid to think bigger. Even a Carleton fan should not oppose trying a new approach. Hey, the Ravens never tire of being challenged.

Neate Sager is a writer for Yahoo! Canada Sports. Contact him at neatesager@yahoo.ca and follow him on Twitter @neatebuzzthenet (photos: The Canadian Press).