TORONTO

Toronto’s most famous basketball factory came up short in its bid to close its final season with another Toronto title.

Eastern Commerce, the winner of eight provincial hoops championships and defending city champion, fell to perennial rival Oakwood on Thursday, with its most famous alumni, Jamaal Magloire watching.

The school will be closing down in June due to sparse enrollment numbers. It has not had a Grade 9 class the past two years.

The school might be shuttering, but Magloire said earlier Thursday that the memories will never disappear.

“It’s bitter, I don’t know how sweet it is,” said Magloire, now employed by his hometown Raptors, the team he finished a long NBA career with.

“It was a great school, it was a good building block for me and a lot of other people. We have a lot of great memories and we’re just going to have to carry it on in our own ways.”

The team twice won Ontario championships in the mid-90s with Magloire and a strong supporting class, won four straight provincial titles from 2002-2005 and triumphed again in 2009.

A year ago, Eastern Commerce prevailed 70-68 over Oakwood in a thrilling overtime contest to claim yet another city title — but Oakwood got revenge, cruising by 20 at OFSAA, on the way to an eventual Ontario championship.

The teams could meet again at OFSAA next month in March, in what would be a fitting finale, should Eastern beat Earl Haig for the final Toronto district spot at the provincial tourney.

Roy Rana, who was a part of four Ontario champion Eastern sides as either head or assistant coach, takes great pride in his time at the school.

“It is an incredible honour to say that I was part of one of the most historic stories of the power of sport in education and its ability to transform the lives of those in it,” Rana told the Sun on Thursday.

“It was an experience I cant quite qualify other then to say it changed so many lives for the better, including mine.”

Magloire said he learned about discipline, about the “will to work and succeed” while there.

“We all had goals and aspirations of playing at the next level and that was a vehicle to do it. They provided all the resources for us, we had great teachers that helped us before and after school and continued to motivate us each and every day,” he said.

“The Saints were probably the best school basketball program that there ever was (in Toronto) and we’re going to miss (it).”