CAN – Brighter outlook for Canada hoops

TORONTO (2010 FIBA World Championship/2010 FIBA World Championship for Women) - Canada's senior national team coaches admit the country's commitment to basketball development and a unified approach has started to pay dividends.
 
Leo Rautins guided the men's team to a surprise place in the Semi-Finals at the FIBA Americas Championship in Puerto Rico, and Allison McNeill coached her side to a bronze medal at the FIBA Americas Championship for Women in Brazil.
 
The results qualified both teams for next year's FIBA World Championships, with the men playing in Turkey and the women in the Czech Republic.
 
"We used to occasionally see that we'd put all our money into a senior team and they'd go and do well, for a quadrennial," McNeill said to the Toronto Star.
 
"And then you have no development and you're back right where you started.
 
"I think we're finally investing in development and investing in senior teams and we're getting some results."
 
The senior sides were not the only Canada teams to raise eyebrows this year.
 
Canada finished seventh at the FIBA U19 World Championship for Men in New Zealand and fourth at the FIBA U19 World Championship for Women in Thailand.
 
Federations, coaches, players and supporters, it seems, have begun to pull in the same direction and Rautins says that has to continue.
 
"There's no way you can have any continuity in the program if you don't have every single aspect of it working together," Rautins said.
 
"And it has to even go beyond the cadet, junior, development and senior.
 
"It's also got to include the CP programs (Canada's Centre for Performance initiative that identifies talent at a young age) around the country because if everybody's not on the same page, you're not feeding anything."
 
FIBA