Easy to explain what beating Spain in hoops would mean

Canadian women in World Cup quarter-finals

VANCOUVER — For years, they have been building to this moment, a chance for all the optimism gained in an incremental climb up the world basketball pecking order to be rewarded. Canada’s national women’s team stands on the precipice of an accomplishment last met in 1986.

There is a formidable object in their way, one of the most difficult challenges of the past decade, but it is what they want, what they need, what they have been waiting for. Canada faces world No. 2 and tournament host Spain on Friday in the quarterfinals of the World Cup, a true road game in the southern city of Tenerife that is a challenge at a handful of different levels.

“If we want to be in the conversation of being a medal contender, these are the teams we have to beat,” coach Lisa Thomaidis said during a conference call Thursday morning.

Beating Spain in Spain would certainly rank among the most impressive results for this group in years. For all they’ve done recently — top eight at the 2012 London Olympics, fifth at the ’14 worlds, a pool winner and top eight at the ’16 Rio Games, a handful of unbeaten runs through continental championships — one giant step has eluded the Canadian women.

They have never won an elimination quarter-final game that gets them one giant step toward the medal podium. A win over Spain would give them two shots on the weekend to earn Canada’s first medal since 1986 when they beat then Czechoslovakia to win bronze.

“We really believe we’re a lot better than we were in 2016,” said Thomaidis.

The difference could come down to how an impressive group of young guards handles the atmosphere and a Spain team that relies on an aggressive, swarming defence.

Hamilton’s Kia Nurse, Montreal’s Nirra Fields and Shay Colley of Brampton were instrumental in Canada’s come-from-behind win against France on Tuesday that earned Canada the chance to play Spain.

“They (Spain) try to keep you from running your stuff,” Thomaidis said.

“We have to be able to score in the open court.”

Canada is unbeaten in three games at the 16-country tournament, basically untested by either Greece or Korea in its first two games before the stirring comeback against archrival France.

“The sky’s the limit,” the coach said. “We’ve shown flashes of being very, very good; we’ve shown flashes of being average.”

The team’s experience should help get over any feelings of intimidation playing the No. 2 team in the world in front of a home audience. Thomaidis mentioned Canada beat Turkey in Turkey on the way to fifth at the 2014 worlds, eight members of this team are back from the ’16 Rio squad and five remain from the ’14 team.

“We’re young in age but old in experience,” Thomaidis said. “There’s nothing they haven’t seen before.”

The winner of the CanadaSpain game plays the winner of Australia-China in Saturday’s semifinals. The gold-medal and third-place games are Sunday.