Dave Smart misses Carleton, but he fears for future of Canadian university basketball

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Dave Smart’s lot in life in Ottawa was pretty good.

A two-decade run as Carleton Ravens head coach produced 13 national championships and a reputation to match in basketball’s world. He, wife Emily and sons Theo and Gabe had community roots.

But in 2023, after three additional seasons overseeing both men’s and women’s programs as Carleton’s director of basketball operations, even hometown couldn’t keep Smart from pursuing U.S. college coaching opportunities.

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First, the Smarts left for Lubbock, Texas, where Dave spent a single season as an assistant coach at Texas Tech University. That soon led to an NCAA Division 1 head coaching job at the University of the Pacific in Stockton, Calif.

“Emily, she was ready and interested in a new adventure for our family that she wasn’t necessarily ready for (before), that none of us are really ready for because the kids were busy with their own sports in Canada,” Dave Smart says in a telephone interview from Stockton. “It has been neat for our family, but it has been tough. My kids left friends and family. Emily, she has three brothers and two sisters who live in Ottawa with their families. Her parents are in (Prince Edward County), in Bloomfield. So she misses that, but it was just good timing for us if we were going to make the move.”

Basketball mattered, too, but, to be frank, Smart doesn’t sound assured about the future of Canadian university basketball.

That’s mainly because of money, specifically new Name, Image and Likeness (NIL) regulations allowing U.S. collegiate athletes to receive financial compensation for marketing.

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U Sports schools in Canada can’t match that, Smart argues, so they’ll lose out on the best prospects. NCAA rules also allow transferring athletes to play immediately, unlike previous restrictions forcing them to sit out the first season.

“They lost up to 15 of their top 20 guys in (Canada), so the level of play just isn’t even close to the same as it used to be,” Smart says.

The Pacific Tigers lost 25 of 31 games last season under their previous head coach. Smart was hired just three weeks after that season ended.

There was plenty of work to do for the 58-year-old coach, with nearly a full roster to fill. Besides a few incoming first-year athletes and a couple from junior colleges, there have been seven transfers, including, notably, three Canadians: Montreal’s Jefferson Koulibaly, Toronto’s Elijah Foster and University of Victoria star Elias Ralph of Okotoks, Alta.

Smart also added UVic head coach Craig Beaucamp as an assistant and Carleton assistant Zach Angelini as assistant coach and director of player development.

“It’s a tough job, or looked like a tough job,” Smart says. “But I do think they’re very serious about their team, and it can only go one direction. It can only go up.

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“People forget. We were OK at Carleton, but we had to change some things to get to where we got to.”

“OK” translated into 13 wins and 17 losses in 1999-2000, his first season as Ravens head coach. No other Smart squad lost more than eight times in a season. His overall record at the school was 656-101.

“I had a great 20-year run at Carleton, coaching and overseeing both programs. I liked the people, I loved the players. It’s a new group of guys (now), but I know a few of them and I like a lot of them, and I think they’ve got some talent,” he says.

“I don’t want to say I don’t miss it, but also I coached the national team for 18 years, did British basketball, did the U-19 national team, the Pan-Am team. I’m kind of used to moving on.”

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