(Photo: Airdrie news photo file)

SC Elite Basketball has their spring teams locked and loaded for league and tournament play.

Hosting tryouts over the past several weeks for their U13, U15, and U17 teams, players from all across Rocky View and even Mountain View came out to try and crack a roster.

"The tryouts and the turnout from kids we had was phenomenal, we had a great response from Airdrie as well as a lot of surrounding areas," says SC Elite Director of Basketball Operation Jamie Newman. "We have a lot of kids very very interested in competitive basketball."

SC Elite had over 160 kids register across all age groups from 7 to 17 years old. The seven competitive teams (U13 boys and girls, U15 boys, two U17 boys and one U17 girls) all got the chance to get in practices this week, as the U15 and U17 boys kick start their spring leagues in Calgary on April 7th and 8th.

But the premier events are the tournaments, with the biggest of them happening over the May long weekend at the Genesis Classic in Calgary.

"There's 68 teams coming to it all the way from out east, some teams from eastern Canada, about 6 or 8 American teams will be up here so it will be really really good competition for a lot of the boys to see."

Other tournaments include the W.I.N Hoop Classic, Shooting Stars Classic, and Vision Classic.

Although the spring basketball tournaments are the big ticket item for SC Elite, Canada and the United States have their sights set on March Madness. In the midst of a basketball boom where Canadians Kevin Pangos and Kyle Wiltjer shine with no. 2 seed Gonzaga in the Sweet 16 Friday, or when former Kansas Jayhawk Andrew Wiggins was drafted number 1 overall in this past years NBA draft, Canada's love and talent for basketball is growing.

"Every kid that's involved in it is super super proud to put that jersey on and say hey I'm from Canada now, it's not an embarrassment or anything like that , we have so many better avenues and good coaches and all these club programs popping up it's a great thing."

Newman noted the recent success of the CIS and ACAC as well, such as the Carleton Ravens men's basketball team who won their 11th CIS national title in 13 years this season, even beating two historic NCAA programs.

"They played against Syracuse this year, they played against Indiana this year and they beat both of those teams. I think there's a phenomenal amount of great basketball coming out of the north here."

"I'm trying to create a culture for Airdrie and surrounding areas for kids to have a place to call home," says Newman. "My goal at the end of the day is to get kids to continue playing basketball either with the ACAC league, the CIS or if they have an opportunity to go play Division 1 basketball."

Newman says the recent spike in Canadian talent is a testament to Canadian basketball programs across the country including those similar to SC Elite.

"I can hardly wait for this to continue on for the next 20, 30, 40, 50 years. It would be great."