Promising Canadian freshmen hope to follow Wiggins, Bennett’s footsteps

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Chris Egi writes poetry. Other hobbies include playing the trumpet. He's a reader, and a recent favourite is Dale Carnegie's 1936 classic How To Win Friends and Influence People.

The 18-year-old from the Toronto suburbs is a freshman at Harvard University, where he's mostly taking math and economics classes this fall, and is a star recruit on the school's top-25 basketball team.

Egi is one of a promising group of five Canadian freshmen basketball players in the NCAA's Division I – the college men's hoops season tipping off this weekend. The fount of basketball talent from Toronto flows uninterrupted, after the city produced back-to-back No. 1 NBA picks Anthony Bennett and Andrew Wiggins. Call the latest aspirants the slightly younger brothers of Bennett and Wiggins.

Freshman five

The quintet is led by Trey Lyles at the University of Kentucky, who at 19 is considered one of the best 50 players in all of college basketball, playing on the No. 1 ranked team. He's projected as a late first-round NBA draft pick in 2015. He is 6-foot-10 and 235 pounds, grew up in Indiana, but was born and lived in Saskatoon until he was 7. Lyles, like his compatriots, has played internationally for Canada. In 2013, at the under-19 FIBA championship in Prague, he was the third-leading scorer of the tournament, with 20 points a game. Canada finished sixth. The top scorer was Tyler Ennis, the Brampton, Ont. guard who was drafted No. 18 last June and plays for the Phoenix Suns.

At Florida State, there's Xavier Rathan-Mayes. His freshman season was derailed for a year because of academic issues. The 6-foot-4 guard had long played side-by-side with Wiggins and Ennis for CIA Bounce, the club team from Brampton, and Sports Illustrated predicts he will be a top scorer among freshmen.

Chris Egi, 6-foot-9 and 215 pounds, is a potential NBA player, former coaches believe. The son of Nigerian immigrants was raised in Toronto and Markham, and played for CIA Bounce. Egi was one of three key players for Canada in June at the FIBA Americas under-18 tournament, where Canada lost in the final to the United States

At the University of Oregon, Dillon Brooks – another CIA Bounce player – is set to surprise. The 6-foot-6 and 225-pound forward was the leading scorer in the FIBA Americas under-18 tournament with 25 points a game.

Last, at the University of Missouri, there is Montaque Gill-Caesar – Teki to his friends. The 6-foot-6 and 215-pound guard grew up with Wiggins in Vaughan, Ont., went to the same prep school in West Virginia, and followed their high school coach to Missouri. Gill-Caesar was the second-leading scorer with 20 points a game at the FIBA Americas in June. Sports Illustrated forecasts him as one of the top freshman scorers.

Upperclassmen, too

There are 105 Canadians in men's Division I ball – slightly down from last year's 112 – but up about 30 per cent from the 2009-13 span, and nearly double the early 2000s. Freshmen attract the attention, but two top Canadians in college basketball are upperclassmen. Senior Kevin Pangos at Gonzaga University, a 6-foot-2 guard, is the engine of the No. 13 ranked team in the AP preseason poll. Junior Olivier Hanlon, a 6-foot-4 guard, plays at Boston College and has an outside shot at Atlantic Coast Conference player of the year.

An immigrant story

At Harvard, where the basketball program, under the tutelage of coach Tommy Amaker, has become a force, the team is ranked No. 25 on the preseason ledger.

Egi will be an important player coming off the bench on a team whose starting forwards are all seniors. Egi has often won playing time at a young age. He was 15 and got some minutes in the summer of 2012 on the successful CIA Bounce team that was led by Wiggins, Tyler Ennis, Xavier Rathan-Mayes and Sim Bhullar. Egi was 16 in 2013 at the FIBA under-19 championship, where he was Canada's No. 5 scorer and No. 2 rebounder.

Egi's tale is an immigrant story – like that of many others coming out of Toronto, including Wiggins, whose mom is from Barbados and dad from North Carolina, as well as Bennett, whose mom moved to Canada from Jamaica.

Tony Egi, Chris's father, moved to Canada at 16, in the mid-1970s, from Nigeria. Christina Egi, his mom, moved when she was 27, in the 1980s. Tony Egi found success as a land developer. "When my dad came," said Chris in an interview, "he didn't have much to go with, and my mom as well. Through hard work, they achieved a lot. They passed that mentality on to me as a kid."

On the court, the work ethic is ferocious, said coach Roy Rana of Ryerson University, who has coached Egi and the other four freshman on Canadian junior teams.

"In basketball, we talk about guys who have a great motor," said Rana. "He's got a 12-cylinder. It just never stops. He plays with an incredible amount of passion."

There's a reason, Egi joked. "When I first started playing seriously at 12 and 13, I was pretty bad, actually. The only thing I had, that I could do, was work harder than anyone else."

Egi figured it out and eventually succeeded in his first goal, becoming better than his older brother, William – who is a student at Princeton University, where he sprinted in track and field before fully focusing on academics. Chris Egi's aim is the NBA, but school first. "If my dad ever sees any kind of slippage, there would be issues," he said, and laughed.

Something to prove

The freshmen five do not have the hype of Wiggins, a generational prospect. Even Trey Lyles is not a certain starter on a stacked Kentucky team.

Still, to Rana, Lyles is primed. "He's a pro right now," said Rana. "There's no question he's ready. He may be the most ready of all of those guys at Kentucky."

The connections with Wiggins – the Minnesota Timberwolves rookie himself still 19 – remain tight, especially Montaque Gill-Caesar, who played against Wiggins all his life, and Rathan-Mayes.

Rathan-Mayes has ground to make up. He starred before with Wiggins and Ennis. In a memorable semi-final win in 2012 for CIA Bounce in a summer-ending tournament, Rathan-Mayes poured in three pointers.

In a new video on Vice Sports, co-produced by Brent Mellis, there are glimpses of that summer, and more recently. Rathan-Mayes, in 2012 at age 18, sitting beside Wiggins, is giddy, confident, young: "Americans, they always think they're the best players in the world and some of them think they're a little too good for themselves. So, I always try and let them know who we are, and that we're from Canada, and we're here to essentially kick their ass."

Then, last winter, almost 20, a winter of exile from basketball, Rathan-Mayes spoke of his driving force. "Got a family to provide for. Got a family that's counting on me being able to provide for them." On Twitter in early November, Rathan-Mayes – who goes by the handle Kid Scarborough – again bumped with confidence, a revival story. "If they don't know now, they will soon."