Ryerson University women's basketball coach Carly Clarke leads a practice at the Mattamy Athletic Centre in Toronto on March 1, 2019.Tijana Martin/The Globe and Mail
Carly Clarke was full of energy as she put the Ryerson Rams women’s basketball team through their paces at the team’s second-floor gymnasium at Mattamy Athletic Centre.
First, she was at one end of the court, then the other, her arms often folded across her chest in a stern pose while barking instructions to players running the drills. She took in everything.
At one point – clearly exasperated – the Ryerson coach bolted onto the court to stop the action.
“Blue,” she shouted, using a secondary nickname for the team, whose uniform colours are blue and white. The gym went instantly quiet as the players stared nervously at their sneaker tops.
“Why did you stop playing?” Clarke continued, her arms now outstretched.
The tirade was short and sweet and Clarke later apologized to the group, saying that she "lost it” a bit.
Clarke could be forgiven for her short fuse. It is that juncture of the season when the stakes are at their highest. And, her Rams have not been playing particularly well in Ontario University Athletics.
The Rams have one more opportunity to prove they are a powerhouse. For the first time in school history the school is playing host to the U Sports women’s national basketball championship. Play begins Thursday and runs through the weekend at Mattamy’s basketball court, built into the old Maple Leaf Gardens. The country’s top eight university teams compete in the single-elimination knockout tournament for the Bronze Baby trophy and the Rams head into the showdown as the eighth seed.
It is just the second time in the past 29 years the event has been in Toronto, where university athletics have long struggled to establish a foothold in a landscape overwhelmed by professional sports.
Ryerson University star basketball player Sophia Paska, centre, is photographed during practice.Tijana Martin/The Globe and Mail
“I think hosting these kinds of events is a big part of showing off who we are,” Clarke said during an interview. “We’ve hosted the men’s basketball championship, women’s volleyball. And we’ve built a competitive women’s basketball program here and I think U Sports was keen to have the women’s basketball championship in a big market.
“The tournament has always done well in smaller markets. Hopefully, in a bigger market, it will attract even more attention.”
The last time the event was in Toronto was in 1990 at the University of Toronto, which staged the event at the old Varsity Arena.
“The venue probably wasn’t the best venue for basketball, but they tried to dress it up nicely,” recalled Michèle Bélanger, the long-serving U of T women’s basketball coach. “I thought the fan base was good.
“I think what it comes down to now is how many Ontario/GTA teams you can get that will draw their own crowd. That’s the benefit of having it in a city like Toronto or close by.”
Ryerson is one of three Ontario-based schools in the tournament, along with Hamilton’s McMaster University, the OUA champion and the country’s second-ranked team, and Ottawa, rated No. 4.
Ryerson will face top-ranked Quebec conference champion Laval in opening-round play. Also on Thursday, McMaster faces Montreal’s Concordia (No. 7), Ottawa takes on Canada West finalist Regina (No. 5) and Canada West champ Saskatchewan (No. 3) plays Atlantic conference winner Acadia (No. 6).
The semi-final is Saturday and the final is on Sunday night.
The underdog Rams were ranked as high as No. 2 in the country at the outset of the season, Ryerson has fallen, though, going 4-5 in its past nine games, including a 74-49 demolishing at the hands of Carleton in the OUA quarter-finals Feb. 23.
Usually, that would have meant the end of the road for Ryerson’s championship hopes. But as the host school, the Rams were granted an automatic berth into the tournament, a standard practice in Canadian university athletics to assist in boosting ticket sales.
The price, however, was steep, as the Rams open against Laval, a team that steamrolled to 15-1 in the Quebec conference and is considered Canada’s top team by a wide margin. Now all the Rouge et Or have to do is prove it this weekend.
Paska, centre, was part of the Ryerson team that lost in the national final to Saskatchewan in 2016 and will be expected to play a significant role in this year's championship.Tijana Martin/The Globe and Mail
“I don’t think my team is afraid of big games,” Clarke said of a Ryerson squad that will rely heavily on the veteran presence of Sofia Paska, Katherine Follis and Cara Tiemens, who were all part of the Ryerson lineup that lost in the national final to Saskatchewan in 2016.
Ryerson is doing what it can to draw attention to the tournament and to the women’s game in Canada.
The school invited Val Ackerman to Toronto to be the keynote speaker during the awards banquet held on Wednesday night. Ackerman was the first president of the Women’s National Basketball Association and the first woman to successfully launch and oversee a women’s team sports league. She helped build the WNBA over eight seasons.
Considered one of the most influential women in sports business, Ackerman is currently the commissioner of the Big East Conference, the U.S. multisport organization for both male and female student athletes who compete in NCAA Division 1.
Graham Brown, the president and chief executive of U Sports, said it will be interesting to see how well the tournament will be supported in Toronto.
He noted that Ryerson does well promoting special events, citing the success of the U Sports men’s championship, which the school played host to in 2015. He said it was also an eyeopener when a capacity gathering of 3,000 were at Mattamy in 2017 to watch Hamilton native Kia Nurse step on the court for the University of Connecticut in a women’s U.S. college game against Duquesne.
“Ryerson will do a great job,” he said. “Their whole athletic department program right now is really doing well. An inner-city school with great facilities, they’re killing it.”
An even bolder move to try to expand U Sports basketball awareness is the decision to hold the men’s and women’s championship simultaneously – for the first time – next year. Most of the games will be in Ottawa’s TD Place Arena. The hosts are the universities of Ottawa and Carleton in partnership with the Ottawa Sports & Entertainment Group.
“I think there are more and more teams that are recruiting and training and preparing and I think a lot of universities are investing so much more into the game,” Clarke said. “Our product I believe – and I tell recruits this – is comparable to NCAA programs. The experience you get here is as good and, in a lot of situations, is better.”