Anthony Pate may have drawn plenty of interest south of the border, but the highly recruited Canadian-born prep school basketball player has decided to take his talents north to the Carleton Ravens men’s basketball team.
Pate said he made his decision because of the team’s perennial chances to win Canadian Interuniversity Sport (CIS) national championships.
“Also playing a lot of Division I teams tight every year and even beating them,” Pate said, alluding to the Ravens’ pre-season success against powerhouse American teams in the National Collegiate Athletic Association.
Pate spent the 2013-14 season playing for the New Hampton School Huskies in the New Hampshire prep school ranks.
He said he suffered a significant ankle injury before the start of his last season at New Hampton, yet attempted to continue to play through the injury for a few weeks before eventually deciding to have season-ending surgery to prevent further damage.
Pate will be joined by a few Ravens teammates with their own prep school backgrounds, including former Maine Collegiate Institute forward Jean-Emmanuel Pierre-Charles and former Cushing Academy big man Cam Smythe.
Pierre-Charles said he’s familiar about the transition from American prep basketball to playing at the CIS level.
“Playing against a number of kids that would go to top D-1 schools teaches you that you can’t take a game off or it might go bad,” he said. “Schools could be recruiting you very hard one week and then fall back the next few,” Pierre-Charles said.
Pate said he received some NCAA Division I offers, like the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, the University of Maine, Saint Peter’s University, and the New Jersey Institute of Technology.
But he said he chose Carleton over these American schools for a simple reason—to become a better basketball player.
“The opportunity to play for Dave Smart, with the guys on the team that have already established themselves as great players in this league is great,” he said.
He also said it would be nice to take the next step in his basketball career in his home country after spending time in the United States.
“The opportunities that playing for Carleton bring forward in terms of staying involved in the Canadian basketball program and reaching my goal of playing professionally made it an easy decision,” he said.
In terms of the skill set he brings to the Ravens, Pate said he is a versatile player who can play either of the two guard positions.
“I look forward to learning from Coach Smart and playing with guys like Phil Scrubb at the point guard spot,” he said. “I’ve always been known for my scoring, but the part of my game people don’t know enough about yet is my point guard skills.”
With the aforementioned Scrubb entering the final year of his storied Ravens career and having experience with the Canadian national team, Pate said he is looking forward to learning from him to potentially achieve similar success.
Pate, a member of Team Canada at both the under-16 and under-17 level, said he’s seen the overwhelming recent growth of basketball first-hand in the Great White North.
“The way Canada basketball has grown over the years has been truly inspiring and I’m honoured to say I’ve been a part of the recent dominance,” he said.
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