Canada basketball is making a global impact, with Kentucky acting as a connecting piece
A look around the current basketball landscape at all levels — prep, college and professional — reveals a common trend for what’s become a global sport: Canada is having its breakout moment.
Canadian players litter the rosters of NBA teams and top college programs around the country, and the development systems in place for young players in Canada have only gotten better in recent decades.
From a third-place showing this summer at the FIBA Basketball World Cup (secured with an overtime victory over the United States in the third-place game) to the star NBA roles now occupied by former UK one-and-dones Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Jamal Murray, the impact of Canadian basketball has never been more prevalent.
And a man with his own distinct place in the growth of Canada basketball will be coaching in Rupp Arena this week.
Kentucky’s Friday night home game against tiny Stonehill College — one of two programs UK is playing this season that are ineligible for the NCAA Tournament — will bring Chris Kraus to Lexington as the head coach of the Skyhawks.
Kraus, a former Stonehill player who is now in his 10th season leading his Massachusetts-based alma mater, is the only Canadian head coach in NCAA Division I men’s basketball (362 teams).
“I’m extremely proud of it,” Kraus told the Herald-Leader during an August interview. “Very appreciative and fortunate at the same time. I think I try and show up each and every day to work and come put the work in behind the scenes to make sure I’m living up to the opportunity I have. I try to do everything in my power possible to prove that I’m deserving of it and to show how good the amount of coaches are out there back in Canada and all over the world.”
A Toronto native, Kraus is himself a product of what’s become a growing ecosystem for young players in his home country.
As a player, he was part of the Grassroots Canada program on the travel basketball circuit. Grassroots Canada helped produce NBA players Andrew Wiggins (the top pick in the 2014 NBA draft), Tristan Thompson and Dwight Powell.
During his AAU days, Kraus was teammates with 2006 NBA draft pick Denham Brown (who won the 2004 NCAA title as a player at UConn) and Jermaine Anderson, who scored more than 1,100 points across four seasons at Fordham.
While Canada’s basketball impact has been evident from the birth of the sport (the game’s inventor, James Naismith, was born in Canada), it’s at a new level now.
Top basketball prospects coming from Canada is no longer a rarity. Since 2017, Uplay Canada has provided a Canadian presence on the ultra-competitive Nike EYBL circuit.
Of the teams currently ranked in the AP Top 25 poll, five players on the rosters of those squads are from Canada, including dominant Purdue big man Zach Edey, last season’s consensus national player of the year.
Across the SEC, two teams (Georgia and Florida) roster a Canadian player: Senior forward Matthew-Alexander Moncrieffe (formerly of Oklahoma State) for the Bulldogs and grad student forward Tyrese Samuel (formerly of Seton Hall) for the Gators.
“Our first goal is just trying to make it out of Canada,” Samuel told the Herald-Leader at last month’s SEC men’s basketball media day. “So now that we opened that gateway and now there’s more Canadians making it out, I think that now it’s time for us to put on for our country and show that Canada is becoming one of the big basketball staples around the world.”
Players from the North are also now in more prominent NBA roles than ever before.
This includes the aforementioned Gilgeous-Alexander (Oklahoma City) and Murray (who won last season’s NBA championship with Denver), but also former Duke star RJ Barrett (New York), Dillon Brooks (Houston) and Shaedon Sharpe (Portland), who infamously enrolled early at Kentucky during the 2021-22 season but left for the NBA without ever playing for the Wildcats.
The Canadian team that achieved the third-place finish this summer at the FIBA Basketball World Cup was led across the board by Gilgeous-Alexander, who averaged 24.5 points, 6.4 rebounds and 6.4 assists per game.
“To see Jamal Murray what he’s doing in the league and Shai, all these guys, Dillon Brooks, you name it, to see how good Canada basketball is and what they’re now starting to show on the world stage,” Kraus, the Stonehill head coach, said.
“I know I played a small part in that and there’s a lot of better players, there’s a lot of better coaches than me, but it just shows to the global state of this game and how good basketball is everywhere across the world.”
“We kind of hold our pride,” added Samuel, who mentioned Wiggins (a 2022 NBA title winner with Golden State) as the Canadian player that he looks up to the most.
“We just try to always beat that little stigma that all Canadians are soft and stuff like that. When you see (other Canadians in basketball), it means something because we know what we went through, we share a lot of the same struggles.”
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