Arizona’s stunning victory over Texas on Sunday eliminated two of the most talented college basketball players to come out of Canada. Brampton’s Tristan Thompson, a potential first-round NBA draft pick one day, and guard Cory Joseph of Pickering saw their freshman season with the No. 4 Longhorns end dramatically when Derrick Williams converted a three-point play that gave the fifth-seeded Wildcats a 70-69 win and a berth in the Sweet Sixteen round of the 2011 NCAA Tournament.
Only two Canadians remain in the tournament: Marquette sophomore guard Junior Cadougan, a Toronto native who played his high school basketball in Georgia and Texas and was one of the top 75 recruits among the 2009-10 freshman class; and Richmond small forward Francis-Cedric Martel, a 6-6 junior from Montreal who averages 4.7 points coming off the bench.
If either Cadougan or Martel becomes the first Canadian since Denham Brown (2003-04 UConn) to be part of a national championship team, then this tournament will go down as the most shocking in history. The Golden Eagles are an 11 seed who will face No. 2 North Carolina in the East Region while the 12th-seeded Spiders take on No. 1 Kansas in the Southwest. No double-digit seed has ever won the tournament.
Adrian Brijbassi 