Canada serves notice to world
Senior women’s team led a basketball program that grew leaps and bounds
MEXICO CITY— A long and overall successful summer has concluded for Canada Basketball with the wrapping up of the FIBA Americas men’s championship in Mexico last weekend.
The bitterness of that team’s failure to qualify for the 2016 Rio Olympics will eventually fade and it cannot take away from what was a great year for the organization’s senior and agegroup teams.
The United States will always be the giant in the region but Canada’s present on the women’s side and future on the men’s has clearly established the country as a consistent threat in FIBA Americas.
A look at the four main programs and the summer they’ve had:
SENIOR WOMEN
They are the crown jewel of Canada Basketball at the moment, a wildly successful veteran group with its future clearly mapped out. They were the FIBA Americas champions — virtually untested in Edmonton last month — and have already qualified for the Rio Olympics, giving coaches and players a full year to tailor preparations for the Games. The women have what the men lacked — vast international experience. Ten of the 12 players who won the FIBA tournament were holdovers from the team that finished fifth at the 2014 world championships and it’s likely the vast majority of them will reconvene for a run at the Olympic podium next August.
Under coach Lisa Thomaidis, the women were unbeaten in Canada this summer, rolling to a Pan Am Games gold medal — Canada’s first — and the championship in Edmonton in front of sellout crowds.
If they proved one thing, it’s that familiarity breeds success and their impact on young girls needing basketball role models cannot be understated.
They also proved that playing at home has huge tangible benefits, something Canada Basketball officials are cognizant of for hosting future events.
SENIOR MEN
The bitter disappointment of last weekend notwithstanding, the summer has to be seen as successful to a large measure, even if the team fell a free throw short of qualifying for next summer’s Rio Olympics.
The so-called Golden Age of Canadian basketball was always about growth and development and the senior men’s team personified that.
It was the first time such a talented squad — nine NBAers played in Mexico on the most talented team ever put together — and the familiarity they developed over those 10 games and four at the Tuto Marchand Cup prior to the FIBA Americas will stand them in good stead in the future.
Team officials have always taken a longer-term view with the program, knowing some roster and leadership stability is paramount for sustained success.
Adding, perhaps, the likes of Tristan Thompson, Jamal Murray and Tyler Ennis to this year’s team presents a promising future; this was never going to be a one-off summer for the senior program and now that so many young players have finally had a taste of intense international competition, they may better handle it next time.
It was a hard summer but one that was necessary for the program to continue its ascension.
UNDER-19 WOMEN
A stacked senior team laden with long-time veterans is eventually going to have to go through some roster turnover and there is a group of women who appear quite capable of keeping Canada among the best in the world.
The U-19 team finished eighth at the world championships but that’s the thin edge of the wedge concerning the next wave of good Canadians.
A developmental team including several women who were in the senior camp but who couldn’t crack the 12-woman roster played to the silver medal at the World University Games in Korea and many of them will push for senior team spots in the coming years.
And that group will in turn be pushed by teenagers who made Canadian history this past summer, providing Canada Basketball with unprecedented depth on the women’s side.
The U-16 team, with little fanfare, beat Brazil in overtime in the gold medal game of the FIBA Americas championship, giving Canada its first first-place age-group finish ever.
UNDER-19 MEN
The junior feeder program flew far under the radar in a summer that included so many significant domestic and senior tournaments.
But perhaps it shouldn’t have as the team went 6-1 at the world championships, Canada’s best finish in the five U-19 events ever held.
They went 4-0 in their preliminary round pool before seeing their medal hopes dashed by a quarter-final loss to Croatia. They rebounded to beat Australia and Italy to gain the fifthplace result under coach Roy Rana.
While so much attention was being paid to the senior men, the international experience gained by the teenagers will be invaluable in the future.
Dillon Brooks, who made his senior debut at the Pan Ams, is seen as one of the greats of the next generation, and even further down the pipeline, Rowan Barrett Jr. of the U-16 team, give rise to a bright long-term future.
The U-16s were second in the FIBA Americas tournament and qualified for the 2016 U-17 worlds.