Nurse right medicine for women Nats
All Canada Basketball officials wanted from Kia Nurse this summer was for her to absorb as much as she could while watching the senior women’s team train.
They knew the 17-year-old was sublimely talented and full of promise and they saw the point guard as an integral part of the program a few years from now; she was to gain valuable experience in a May training camp just by being around. How times have changed. Now, there is every expectation that the Hamilton teenager will be the team’s starting point guard next month when it tries to qualify for the 2014 world championships after a stunning summer from Nurse that accelerated her standing in the system more than anyone expected.
“She’s the real deal,” said head coach Lisa Thomaidis.
Nurse, a member of national team agegroup programs for just three years, has simply found her niche running a squad laden with experienced international players and former Canadian Olympians.
Through exhibition tours of Europe and China, she has answered emphatically the question of who might replace the invaluable Teresa Gabriele, who has retired. But even Nurse is a bit taken aback at how quickly it’s happened.
“Yeah, I was really surprised,” she said after the national team practised at Humber College on Wednesday.
“I was invited to the first tryout just to gain experience and see where people were and then they asked me to keep staying. I was like, ‘Ah, OK.’ It was really a good experience for me to keep staying.
“I think I’m really happy with myself for adapting as fast as they think I am.”
What Thomaidis and Nurse’s teammates see is a young woman with good size — she’s about six feet tall — and world-class basketball speed who plays with a preternatural calm. After “taking a few lumps” during the team’s tour of Europe earlier this summer, according to her coach, Nurse has settled into an oncourt leadership role seamlessly.
“For her, having the confidence playing at this level and the team having the confidence in her running the show is just huge,” said Thomaidis. “She has every single intangible you would need and want in a point guard. It’s one thing to be 17 but it’s another thing to have the compete level, the capacity for training, the love for the game. She’s very humble, fearless, all those things you want in a player. She brings them all at this age.”
The Canadian team will need Nurse to be as effective as she’s been as it chases one of three FIBA Americas berths at the qualification tournament in Mexico next month. The Canadians are off to Brazil for a three-game exhibition tour this weekend and will have a short break before the final training camp in Edmonton leading into the qualification event.
That tournament will be a true test of Nurse’s mental fortitude, which she said has been the hardest part of the transformation from high schooler to international starter.
“Since I’ve been playing the game for so long, it’s just kind of trusting in myself and trusting in what I do and what I’ve learned to do and what I’ve done,” she said. “Obviously it’s helped me be successful now so (it’s) just sticking with what you know and sticking within my boundaries and then playing outside the box when the time is right.”