VICTORIA, B.C. — Death, taxes and the men’s Canadian national basketball team disappointing just as they get this close to reaching the Olympic Games.
On Saturday, in front of a socially distanced max capacity crowd of about 740 fans all there just to cheer on Canada, the Canadian national team largely underperformed against a good, veteran Czech Republic team, shooting poorly with no answer for the Czechs larger size up front and sharpshooting from around the perimeter.
Yes, there were some really bad calls made against Canada, most notably an unsportsmanlike foul call against Trey Lyles with about three minutes to play in regulation. The team, led by Andrew Wiggins, Nickeil Alexander-Walker and R.J. Barrett, did manage to storm back and force overtime, and the Czechs only won because of an outstanding banked jumper from Tomas Satoransky followed by a shot that went in and out at the buzzer for Canada after a well-designed play.
But the bottom line is that Canada lost, 103-101 in overtime, in the semifinals of an Olympic Qualifying Tournament played on home soil where they had to win the whole event in order to qualify for the Tokyo Games.
That didn’t happen and, as such, the team not only disappointed, it outright failed.
“I’m very disappointed, of course, who wouldn’t be,” a dispirited Cory Joseph said after the game. “I think the whole country is disappointed.”
“We haven’t been able to go where we’ve wanted to go but it’s always been a helluva experience and it’s always been good to me,” Joseph added. “As long as I can do it, I’ll continue to. It’s always been a pleasure, that’s how I look at it every summer. A chance to play for my country, honour my country and just go out there and have fun.
“These games happen too much for our liking but it’s something we have to continue to chip at, continue to hammer the rock because FIBA’s not going anywhere for a long time. Even if it’s not me, the younger generation that’s who I think we all do it for. We go, obviously, out for ourselves, but we want the younger generation to be inspired like we were inspired with [Steve] Nash and all of those guys.”
Nothing but love for this team.
Fought all the way to the very end.
Thank you for proudly representing Canada. pic.twitter.com/Ehl9mabdAw
— Canada Basketball (@CanBball) July 3, 2021
Joseph was the most experienced player on this Canadian team in Victoria and if anyone understands what comes next for Team Canada, it’s him.
When he mentioned hammering away at the “rock,” he meant it figuratively, but it may as well have been literally because being a team that comes close to reaching the Olympics but falls short doesn’t come with any benefits.
Canada will now have to start once again from square one in order to reach Paris 2024.
As a refresher, the main way to reach the Olympic basketball tournament is done by placing high enough at the FIBA Basketball World Cup.
The next World Cup will be held in Japan and the Philippines in 2023, but in order to reach the World Cup countries will have to go through a round of qualifying windows first in the leadup of the event.
The first qualifying window will be held in November of this year, meaning as disappointing as things ended for Canada in their pursuit of the Tokyo Games there won’t be much time to think before the cycle begins anew and the first steps are taken towards Paris begins.
On one hand, this is an exciting prospect for Team Canada because you can get right back on the saddle later this year, but it’s also incredibly frustrating because, like seen in 2015 in Mexico City and 2016 at that Olympic Qualifying Tournament in advance of the Rio Games, making steps to climb the mountain to just barely see the summit only to then stumble and slide all the way back down is exhausting.
A major reason why Canada always disappoints right when they’re there is because they run into teams with plenty of experience playing with each other for many years across multiple major tournaments.
Canada doesn’t have that luxury mainly because of the timing of these qualifying windows the team will need to go through in order to reach the 2023 World Cup.
As mentioned before, the first window is in November later this year and the second one is in February of 2022. These are dates that directly conflict with the NBA season where, obviously, Canada’s best talent plays.
In total, there are six qualifying windows for the 2023 FIBA World Cup but only two take place in the summer, with probably just one, in August, that would better accommodate the schedules of Canada’s NBA talent.
And this is where the major problem lies.
As Team Canada head coach Nick Nurse has said throughout the OQT in Victoria, he’s hoping this experience for everyone can help build chemistry and create a real program, but that’s nearly impossible to do when, during times in between the main Olympic qualification period — the World Cup itself and the OQTs — you’re not going to be able to get the same guys playing.
The teams Canada fields from event to event is just too drastically different every time to really create chemistry, no matter how important Nurse and Canada’s coaching staff knows it is.
“I think that’s a pretty drastic roster turnover from 2019 to here for us,” said Nurse of the difference between the team in Victoria and the one that went to the 2019 World Cup. “We were going to always have turnover, I think. The injuries and the contract situations always play a part in that, but we’ve got to have some group sticking together, a core group, I think is probably the important thing.”
But acknowledging the importance of having a “core group” and actually getting one that plays all the time with each other just doesn’t seem feasible for Canada.
In fact, there’s a chance that Nurse may not even stick around to coach the national team as he mentioned he’s likely to evaluate things after this disappointment in Victoria.
“We evaluate everything with what the program here after this, a debrief with it,” said Nurse. “I mean, I think you know me well enough that I love coaching and I love coaching this team and Toronto and I’m just trying to help basketball grow, right? So, again, we’ll debrief it all. I just want this team to be as good as it can possibly be and we’ll talk about that coming up.”
Those are encouraging words from Nurse, but you just never know.
Like clockwork, the Canadian men’s basketball team came up short with a shot at the Olympics on the line.
And so, once again, the program will have no choice but to walk the arduous path towards qualification for the next Olympic Games.
