European tour the test Canadian hoops side needs
‘We have to get better at playing international game,’ Triano says of summer trip
SAN ANTONIO— One of the glaring deficiencies in Canada’s senior men’s basketball team in its failed bid last summer to qualify for the World Cup was its lack of experience.
Canada Basketball hopes to rectify that later this summer with an ambitious schedule of exhibition games during an extended trip to Europe.
“We’re really good at training, we have to get better at playing the international game,” coach Jay Triano said in a phone interview Friday.
Included in the trip are road exhibition games in Spain, Croatia and Slovenia, a three-team tournament in Italy and enough difficult competition to provide the much-needed adversity for a team whose next goal is to qualify for the 2016 Olympics.
“There’s a stretch where we play six games in six nights in three different countries,” said Triano. “We’re going to go into hostile environments and see what it takes.
“This is going to get us ready to play international basketball.”
The team will convene in Toronto in late July — right after the NBA summer league season is over — for a three-day training camp before leaving on the 11-game European tour.
Canada will face teams nearing the final stages of their preparations for the World Cup in Spain in late August through early September. It could be seen as far better experience in the long term for a team that hasn’t been at the Olympics since 2000 in Sydney and went winless at the 2010 world championships. “Not qualifying (last summer) hurt but we’re going to get 11 games against great teams in hostile environments and this could turn out to be a better year for us than if we went to the World Cup,” said Triano. “These games will get us ready to play international basketball.” As always, however, the makeup of the roster is a moving target. Triano and Canada Basketball officials are in the process of working with NBA teams to see if they have issues with the country’s best players taking part in the tour. Complicating matters is that they don’t know yet who to talk to about draft-eligible players like Andrew Wiggins, Tyler Ennis, Nik Stauskas, Melvin Ejim, Jordan Bachynski and Khem Birch, all of whom are waiting to see where they land after the June 26 NBA draft. “We’re going to try to get all of our best players,” the coach said.