Canadian basketball prospects in Mexico were lucky to get out safe

Tre-Vaughn Minott was just as naïve as the rest of us in early March when Coronavirus first began to spread throughout North America.

The 6-foot-10, Canadian was going to school at the NBA’s Latin America Academy in Mexico when he first heard about the virus. He remembers thinking it was nothing more than a bad flu, but when the NBA shut down on March 11, Minott knew he had to get home.

The days following that Wednesday are a bit of a blur for the three Canadians — Minott, Bennedict Mathurin and Olivier-Maxence Prosper — who were working out at the academy when the virus became an international pandemic.

They had all left their comfort zones and moved to Mexico with the hope of one day becoming NBA players. They agreed the NBA Academy was the perfect place for them to work on their basketball skills and improve their education, but now they were almost four thousand kilometers from home in a country still quite foreign to them.

“It was just was like an any other day, going to school and training. Then everything changed instantly,” said Prosper, a 6-foot-7 forward committed to Clemson. “The coaches came to my room and said, ‘you're leaving, you go home,’ just like that. … It was just like suddenly; everything was shut down and we had to go home.”

Prosper said he was told Saturday morning that he had to get out of Mexico and by that night he was on the redeye back to Montreal.

Minott and Mathurin had a little bit more time, but that made things more emotional. The boys met their teammates at Rebel Wings for one final dinner that Saturday night.

“It was sad,” Minott remembered. “I have one very close friend from Brazil on the team, Malik Wade, he's going to Cap-Baptist University next year and I don't know when I'm ever going to see him again.”

For Mathurin the moment was magnified. Unlike Minott, who will be returning to the academy next year for his senior season, Mathurin — a four-star prospect on 247Sports — is off to Arizona next year and he said he wasn’t ready to say goodbye to his teammates and coaches.

“I remember the last day,” said Mathurin, a 6-foot-6 forward committed to Arizona. “It was the last time we were together for a long time or maybe for the last time.”

Then, that Sunday morning, they were gone, back to Montreal and into quarantine.

“It was pretty lucky for us,” Minott said. “We really came in at the right time. We really came in right before things started to get worse and right before our Prime Minister said 'you know what we're shutting down the airports.

For Minott, this summer was supposed to be an opportunity to do some university visits. He said he was planning on visiting the University of New Mexico, the University of New Orleans, and UMass Lowell, but all that has been put on hold.

Instead, all three boys are back in Montreal trying to finish up their schoolwork virtually and working out as best they can.

“We’ve got to stay safe,” Prosper said. “You’ve got to make sure everybody stays in.”

Correction: April 16, 2020

An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated Malik Wade will be attending Calabasas University. He will be going to Cap-Baptist University next year.