“There’s always been players in Canada, we just didn’t get exposed to the American colleges and American coaches,” said Wiggins, the son of American-born former NBA guard Mitchell Wiggins and Marita Payne-Wiggins, a former star of the Canadian national track and field team. “Competition is a lot higher, but we wanted to test our skills down here and we’ve adapted.”

The debate in Canada, according to Junior National Team Coach Roy Rana, is whether the country’s top prospects will ever be able to stay north of the border to continue their basketball development. All but four members of CIA Bounce’s under-17 roster play for Huntington Prep (W. Va.), St. Benedict’s (N.J.) or Findlay Prep (Nev.), American powerhouses that finished within the top 15 this year in USA Today’s national basketball rankings.