(Reuters)
For Canada, opening weekend at the World Basketball Champions in Turkey, the national men’s basketball team’s biggest tournament in eight years, has been surprisingly encouraging, painfully frustrating.
The former being their ability to compete with the world’s best, the latter being their inability to put said teams away.
On Saturday, coach Leo Rautins’ Canadian team, which includes Edmonton’s Jermaine Bucknor, blew a fourth-quarter lead in losing 81-71 to Lebanon, a team they probably should have beat, then blew a 17-point third quarter lead Sunday as they fell 70-68 to Lithuania, a team they had absolutely no business beating.
Canada now sits 0-2 in group play, with games still to come against France (Tuesday), New Zealand (Wednesday), and Spain (Thursday). They’ll need to win two of those to advance to the single-elimination round of 16, and all three opponents are ranked significantly higher than Canada on FIBA’s world chart.
Canada is a young team battling injuries, and as is often the case, the country’s best players aren’t on the roster. That includes NBA pros Steve Nash, Samuel Dalembert, Jamaal Magloire, and Matt Bonner, all MIA for one reason or another.
Not much was expected at this tournament from Canada, who were underdogs just to qualify last summer. This being Canada’s first appearance at Worlds since 2002, it was nice just to be back in elite company.
Though an unrelenting stretch of misfortune has prevented it from ever really coming to fruition, Canada should be a player on the international hoops scene, not perennial also-rans. This wasn’t going to be the team to prove that, though. Looking at this roster, a collection of good but not great players who will win as much with heart as skill, to expect anything truly special wouldn’t be fair.
And yet, here they are, thisclose to being 2-0, and a missed three-pointer at the buzzer by Jermaine Anderson away from defeating Lithuania for one of Canada’s greatest hoops wins.
I have no idea what’s going through these players minds right now, but I would hope that they’re staying positive. That they’re growing from this, that what isn’t killing them is making them stronger.
Maybe next time they won’t rush shots when holding a large lead in the second half. Maybe next time the inexperienced players that were on the court for much of a 24-3 Lithuania run that erased a massive deficit won’t react like deer in the headlights.
Players like Kelly Olynyk, just 19, and Robert Sacre, 21, are the guys who will be pillars when Canada finally returns to the Olympics for the first time since 2000, hopefully in 2012 or 2016.
Then, these loses may prove as valuable learning experiences. But that doesn’t take the sting off them today.
Tags: Canada Basketball, FIBA, Jermaine Bucknor, Kelly Olynyk, Leo Rautins, Robert Sacre, Steve Nash, World Basketball Championship
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