Can new coach Nell Fortner solve the mystery that is Canada's women's basketball team?
CBC
At Canada Basketball's women's training camp, there's fresh energy and a new coach.
There's also mystery.
As in: veteran Sami Hill has organized an ongoing game of Million Dollar Secret, wherein someone is the so-called millionaire, charged with completing odd tasks while not raising suspicion, and everyone else must vote on who they think it is each night.
Delaney Gibb, who is set for her senior team debut at the FIBA AmeriCup later this month, has yet to figure it out. She insists she is not the millionaire.
Of course, there is another, more pressing mystery: how can this team, full of talent and consistently ranked among the top five or 10, break through and win an Olympic medal?
That is the task at hand for new head coach Nell Fortner.
"That's a challenge. I really like challenges. I enjoy that. I'm not afraid of them. They motivate the heck out of me," Fortner told CBC Sports.
Her first challenge as Canada's head coach will come at the AmeriCup, which runs June 28 to July 6 in Santiago, Chile. Win, and the Canadians get into the 2026 World Cup, where Olympic qualification is at stake. Lose, and there's more hoops to jump through.
In a twist of fate, Canada's destiny at the tournament could well come down to a championship game against the U.S.
Fortner, the 66-year-old from Jackson, Miss., just so happens to be the winningest coach in USA Basketball women's history.
"I had to kind of process, 'Oh, wait a second, I coached the U.S. team, can I coach another — like, is this OK? And that's just how international ball is, coaches coach everywhere," Fortner said.
"But after I came, decided I was gonna do it, it was just an incredible feeling of what an awesome opportunity to be able to coach a country's elite players and to compete for the highest honour. I'm not sure there's anything better than that."
Canada came to last summer's Paris Olympics with three medal-hopeful basketball teams. None reached the podium.
Perhaps the biggest disappointment was the women's team, which failed not only to make it out of the group stage, but to win a game at all. The quick 0-3 exit marked the latest step in the wrong direction after a 1-2 record failed to boost Canada into the knockouts at Tokyo 2020. Canada lost in the quarterfinals at the previous two Olympics.
