Carleton Ravens basketball star Philip Scrubb will need to find another spot in his trophy case after being named the top male athlete in Canada for the 2013-14 season.
Scrubb captured the Canadian Interuniversity Sport (CIS) male athlete of the year award, averaging 18.6 points and 4.9 assists a game while acting as the driving force behind the Ravens’ 22-0 regular season record and eventual national championship.
As a winner of the CIS’s basketball player of the year award for three consecutive seasons and three-time Ontario University Athletics (OUA) player of the year, the overall Canadian athlete of the year award was one of the few individual titles left for him to win.
He credits his teammates as being instrumental in his development, especially during his first year at Carleton.
“When I came in [as a first-year player] I struggled a bit. But the older players helped me get through it,” he said.
Now, Scrubb has put those struggles long behind him, as he is one national championship away from following in the footsteps of Ravens legend Osvaldo Jeanty—who also happened to win the CIS male athlete of the year honour in 2006.
Jeanty is currently the only player in Carleton history to win a national championship in all five years he attended the university.
“[Scrubb]’s a talent and there’s no one else I’d rather share that distinction with,” Jeanty said.
There is also the possibility of being the first CIS player selected in the NBA draft since Will Njoku was drafted in the second round out of Saint Mary’s University in 1994 by the Indiana Pacers.
Scrubb was eligible to enter the draft this season, but elected to play one final year of university ball at Carleton.
“This is the perfect place to develop for the next level,” he said. “Going into the draft this year would have been a bit of a gamble.”
Ravens forward Jean-Emmanuel Pierre-Charles said Scrubb’s influence sets the tone for the entire team.
“He’s always in the gym working and if you see him in the gym and you’re doing nothing, it makes you want to start working,” Pierre-Charles said.
After Carleton’s decade of dominance in Canadian basketball, Scrubb said the pressure to compete comes from within the team itself.
He said despite his individual success, next season will be no different from any other.
“You have to have high standards within the team and for yourself to play at a high level,” he said. “I have to lead the team.”
