Largest junior tourney in Canada
This week’s Kawartha Classic junior boys basketball tourney using 64-team March Madness-style bracketing
What do Toronto Raptors star Cory Joseph and former Canadian men’s basketball team captain Jesse Young have in common?
Both played in the Kawartha Classic high school basketball tournament and now have awards named in their honour.
The annual tournament, started in 1990 by Ed Garskey and Jim Faulkner, has gone through changes over the years. It’s been a combined junior and senior tournament and for the past four years it’s been a junior tournament.
Since Steve Peers took it over four years ago it’s grown from 20 to 32 to now 64 teams making it, the best Peers can tell from his research, the largest junior high school tournament in Canada.
It’s now called the Kawartha Classic Madness Tournament as he’s adopted the 64-team bracket style schedule of the NCAA March Madness tournament. The only difference is he’s created separate 32-team divisions based on calibre including the NCAA division and NIT division. The tournament’s top point guard award is named after Joseph who won the tournament while attending Pickering high school. The top Peterborough player will win the Young award named after the Peterborough native who played pro in Europe. Basketball Canada and Basketball Ontario have provided prizes like national team practice jerseys, hoodies and pants.
The quality of teams is very high and some consider it the unofficial junior OFSAA, Peers said.
“The top 12 are spectacular,” Peers said. “The 10th ranked team (St. Peter) is 10-0 in Ottawa.”
Defending champions Thornlea are ranked No. 1 followed by Pickering’s Pine Ridge, Hamilton’s Saltfleet, Brampton’s St. Augustine, Ajax’s Notre Dame, Aurora’s Bill Crothers, Pickering, Hamilton’s Cathedral and York’s Milliken Mills to round out the top 10. The Adam Scott Lions are the lone Peterborough school in the NCAA division at No. 30. All other local teams are in the NIT division where the Thomas A. Stewart Griffins and St. Peter’s Saints are ranked in the top 10, said Peers.
As a tournament alumnus, Peers is happy to see it return to prominence.
“I plan to run it for the next 25 years,” said Peers, who is now teaching at Port Hope High School. “I really liked it because you saw teams that were really, really good. I remember playing in the senior Classic against a guy who was seven-foot-four. You see all these schools who are just unbelievable at basketball.”
Each team plays two seeding games on Friday. Teams that are 2-0 go to the A division where it takes five consecutive wins to claim the tournament title. Teams that are 1-1 get split into B and C divisions depending on which game they won and 0-2 teams drop to the D division. Each team is guaranteed three games.
The NCAA A final is scheduled for 3:10 p.m. Saturday at the Sport and Wellness Centre on Brealey Drive. The NIT A final is 5:40 p.m. at St. Peter Secondary School. The Fleming Knights men’s basketball team is supporting the tournament and will host St. Lawrence Vikings at 8 p.m. Friday at the Wellness Centre with 23 tournament teams scheduled to attend.
There is no admission fee to tournament games.
A full schedule can be found at www.thekawarthaclassic.com.