RIO DE JANIERO – It was a few minutes after the USA Olympic Women’s Basketball team dispatched neighboring Canada 81-51 in an Olympic basketball Pool B showdown when legendary Canadian Basketball star and present women’s assistant Coach Bev Smith walked through the post game mix zone reserved for interviews at the Youth Arena in Deadora to stop and provide some insight into another game with the Americans.
“We know it’s always a tough game against them,” commented Smith who played her college basketball career at Oregon and was a three-time Olympian player and former Head Coach for Canada. “We know this is a process. We don’t have the numbers like in America to draw from.”
Right now this is a history making Canadian Olympic Women’s basketball team winning three preliminary round games, the most at this level, something more than can be said of their pro-laden male counterparts that failed to make the Rio Olympics after losing to Mexico in the Americas and then to France in the Olympic Qualifier in Malaysia. The women earned every step of this journey winning the PanAmerican Games last year in Toronto against a college grad dominated USA team with Breanna Stewart, Moriah Jefferson and Tiffany Mitchell.
Canada Women did what the Canada Men wouldn’t do is bid for a FIBA Qualifier tournament. The Men had to travel to Malaysia while the Women traveled north to Edmonton shortly after Toronto to host the FIBA America qualifier and won again, this time getting a direct berth to the Rio Olympics and helping realize their goal of getting to the medal round.
To get there Canada was selected into the same Rio Olympic Pool B along with Spain, Senegal, Serbia, China and the USA. Despite this draw Canada agreed to a three-game exhibition series in the US with two other Pool A powers, Australia and France. The USA-Canada exhibition game ended 83-43 when Team USA jumped out to a 19-6 first quarter lead and followed with a 21-5 third quarter margin.
The opposite occurred yesterday at the Youth Arena game when Canada started out tough on defense and held the USA to a two point lead (18-16) after the first quarter. Intense defense by Canada forced the USA to shot poorly and turn the ball over but that didn’t last long. In the second period the USA came alive forcing nine turnovers and getting points from Maya Moore (eight) and Diana Taurasi (6 points) to blow the game open 36-22 at the half.
Canada faces Team USA in Women’s Basketball Pool B action at the Youth Arena at the Rio Olympics
While holding the USA to under 100 points for the first time their last meeting on July 29th (four straight games) it was the combined talented roster of the USA which boasts 12 WNBA players, more than half of whom plays overseas also on Tier 1 professional market teams, which overtook Canada.
“We have 1/10th of the population it’s not like we have a lot where we can just pluck someone here and they’re going to be our next scorer” said a reflective Canada Women’s Head Coach Lisa Thomaidis. “We’re a little bit limited. Our strength is going to be our system.”
The Canadian system has produced their best Olympic record to date and a group of young roster players, half under the age of 25 led by UConn junior Kia Nurse (20), Nayo Raincock-Ekunwe (24), Miah-Maerie Langolis (24), Nirra Fields (UCLA, 22), Natalie Achonwa (ex-Notre Dame, 23), Katherine Plouffe (23) and twin Michelle Plouffe (23) with only Fields (Phoenix Mercury) and Achonwa (Indiana Fever) being WNBA roster players. The rest of the roster plays mostly in France, two (Tamara Tatham, Longolis) with Russia Tier II teams and one in Australia (Nayo Raincock-Ekunwe).
Add to this young Olympic roster more younger talent in the pipeline from their 2015 u16 FIBA Americas championship roster – their first youth gold medal – to go with the Women’s National team golds in Toronto and Edmonton.
“For us it’s just about continuing to getting better,” said Thomaidis. “We’re getting more and more athletic as we go along. Our players are getting more versatile, our bigs are understanding we don’t have 6-8 in there and we’re going to have to use perimeter skills, stretch the floor, spread the floor. And we’re getting few more dynamic guards.
The big guard on the roster is Nurse who just started back from post season minor surgery at UConn. It was enough to keep her out most of the summer until the USA Exhibition tour. It did impact her play by limiting her minutes in each of two USA games in minutes and points (0 for 3, 25 minutes / 1 for 9, 23 minutes). Without her offense it will take others with WNBA experience like Fields and Achonwa to anchor the sprint to the medal round and veterans Kim Goucher, Miranda Ayim and Tatham to carry the offensive load.
“To negate some of the size (the Americans) have you going to have step out any one of five player and knock down threes for sure,” said Thomaidis. “And, every time we get to play against them it’s going to help us down the road. It’s only going to make us better.”
NOTES: The last Olympic preliminary round game for Canada (3-1) is a battle for second place in the pool B Spain (3-1) on Sunday evening at the Youth Arena at 5:45 p.m. Normally this would be a key game of placement to avoid the next round competitor. Japan upset France 79-71 to create a three-way tie for second at 3-2 with Turkey. Japan ended up 4th place to draw the USA on Tuesday. The winner of the Spain-Canada game gets B2 and faces A3 Turkey and eventually A1 Australia in the semifinal. The loser gets a staggering but dangerous France A2 and the expected USA in the other semifinal on Thursday.
Two teams that have underachieved have been China (3rd at the FIBA Women’s Olympic Qualifier) and Serbia (automatic EuroBasket winner) with 1-3 records in Pool A in an event without the perennial competitor Russia.
