Five years ago, Roy Rana, fresh off of his first season as Ryerson University’s men’s basketball head coach, convinced a group of highly talented, heavily recruited basketball players to stay in Canada for their collegiate careers.

Bjorn Michaelsen, Jordon Gauthier, and Jahmal Jones had the talent needed to play south of the border. They knew it, and Rana likely knew it. But the players trusted him, and in doing so trusted that their country would make great strides in promoting the game over their time as university athletes.

That trust was significant in that it was mutual. Rana knew he’d need dedicated student-athletes to reach the pinnacle of success, which to him had little to do with personal achievement. This success, for Rana, was about something much more difficult to quantify: the growth of the game he loved in the country to which he dedicated his coaching career, and the progression and development of his young team as men first, and players second.

The Rams, a team once so futile that they famously won just one game over the course of two seasons, sat on the precipice of achieving Rana’s vision of winning the CIS national championship on home court, in front of a sold-out stadium.

Against the Ottawa Gee-Gees, considered to be one of the best programs in the country, the team was in for a tough ride in the semi-finals. Ryerson played like the crowd cheered: passionate, expressive, and indicative of how far the game has come since Rana took over.

Ryerson lost, but took home the bronze medal—the program’s first medal in its history—about 13 hours later. Michaelsen, Gauthier and Jones, the remaining pieces of Rana’s first recruitment class, exited the game, an 82-68 win, late in the fourth quarter, humbled and appreciated, and hugged their coaches and teammates.

This is what you get for staying in Canada: Real connections, real growth. No false renown, no need for lawsuits for player compensation—see Ed O’Bannon vs. NCAA—just simple, authentic personal progress.

Canada and the United States have never gone to war with eachother, but in 2015, the basketball court has become the newest frontier for battle, with Canadian talent slipping its way between the cracks to reach the NCAA and, in several cases, the big show.

The NBA, once a place for Steve Nash and a collection of other less-celebrated Canadian ballers has witnessed a renaissance of the red and white, with the pipeline to the league becoming more easily accessible to players not hailing from the states.

Not that NBAers Joel Anthony, Jamaal Magloire and Samuel Dalembert have anything to be embarrassed by, but none of them ever managed to captivate a national basketball scene the way that young players like Andrew Wiggins, Anthony Bennett and Tyler Ennis have in such a short time.

With the boom in Canadian representation, it would be easy to think that the NCAA— the outlet to the NBA for Wiggins, Bennett, Ennis and several others in the past five years— is the only way to reach NBA glory.

Those players all left Canada to achieve their dreams, and while players staying at home are less likely to get to that level (now), those who do stay in school, creating a different kind of atmosphere than the one the NCAA’s March Madness has to offer.

The Madness is just that: mad. An overblown reminder, albeit an entertaining one, that the U.S. is the be-all and end-all for Canadian hopefuls. Each game is broadcasted nationally, with millions tuning in to watch. It’s undeniably exhilarating, overwhelmingly analyzed, and endlessly enjoyable.

So why would anyone not go play down there?

The CIS, Canada’s answer to the NCAA, is relatively unknown comparatively. When its players receive scholarships, they generally fulfill them for the entirety of a university degree.

In Canada, there is no one and done.

So when the CIS Final 8 championships were held in Toronto in March, it was not an exhibition for NBA execs to decide which 18-year-old kids to pluck to be the building block of their franchise, but an opportunity for players to finish what they’ve started.

NCAA coaches, notably John Calipari of Kentucky, have become known to recruit players who leave after just one season. While he isn’t to blame for these players’ early exits, Calipari has helped to perpetuate a system of great players leaving college as quickly as they arrived— including Derrick Rose in Memphis, Anthony Davis, Patrick Patterson, Eric Bledsoe, John Wall, Demarcus Cousins and a handful of others.

In Canada, a season isn’t just comprised of games, tournaments and roadtrips. It is made up of two semesters, lectures and exams. It’s an education.

Isn’t that what being a student-athlete should be?

This year’s CIS championship was played at Ryerson’s Mattamy Athletic Centre, formerly Maple Leaf Gardens, which housed the first NBA game ever in 1946. Unlike March Madness, which has games in giant, 20,000 seat stadiums at costs too expensive for most students (who the games are really for), this year’s championship was designed to build the game’s popularity among the younger generation, instead of wealthy old boosters.

Courtside seats for the championship game cost a modest $35, and most games of the tournament were either free or highly subsidized for anyone with a student card.

“It’s like a high school gym in here,” said one fan. “And I mean that in the best way possible.”

The players’ friends watched them play in the biggest games of their lives thus far. Their classmates sat and said, “That guy who just dunked is in my physics lab.” Their teachers came and saw what is so important that the team’s starting guard has to schedule extra class time to keep his GPA up to a respectable level.

There are a lot of differences between the CIS and the NCAA, and that should never change.

“I still see myself as an educator, not necessarily as a coach,” Rana said after the loss in the semi-finals. For years, he worked with students at the high school level, and understands the impact this time in life has on young people.

“Wins and losses are kind of what we’re judged by, but what people don’t see are the other things these young men go through, and what they become.”

Jahmal Jones came to Ryerson as an introvert. An extremely talented guard, he blossomed as a player and person under Rana’s tutelage, serving as the team captain over the last three seasons with Bjorn Michaelsen as his co. Michaelsen, a Quebec native who came to Ryerson as a struggling English speaker, was immediately taken under Rana’s wing, and has been honoured as an Academic All-Canadian three times. Jordon Gauthier, who ends his career as one of the all-time leaders in several statistical categories at Ryerson, couldn’t have dreamed of playing his university basketball anywhere else.

Rana’s journey has been a joint one with his players. That’s just the way it was, and that’s the way it should be.

A lot of the time, “Canadian” is incorrectly used as a youthful descriptor in the global basketball discussion, and while there is lots of room to grow, the CIS should try to maintain the identity that makes it unique.

The CIS has a long way to go, but one thing it should never do is to try to become the NCAA.

If anything, the NCAA could learn a thing or two from the CIS.

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