TrueNorth31 wrote:I know there's been a lot of complaining about this new qualification format, but at the end of the day most of the countries that should have gotten through did so. The countries with player depth survived. I prefer this system to the one in Mexico in which Canada lost to Venezuela in a one game fluke. This process is more fair given that all 12 games in the various windows have somewhat an impact.
Another aspect I like is that it's brought meaningful home soil national team games literally coast to coast from Victoria to Saint John's. We went years where the National Team never had any home games - to the extent they branded themselves as the " Road Warriors " ( now it would have been better to have these games on a cable broadcaster to generate more interest, but I think that's something the new administration will look at ). It also as Well You Know commented on, opened up to Canadians a whole new sub-set of players who are fairly good who deserve a lot of commendation and attention for stepping up.
I had my doubts when they lost to the Virgin Islands in the America Cup when this whole process started, but they certainly as they went along made changes and found a formula that at the end of the day worked. Rowan Barrett and the administration of Basketball Canada certainly deserve a lot of credit.
Much of what you say I agree with but...
You have to admit every game on Canadian soil was an attendance disaster. These are 3000-5000 capacity stadiums that looked a quarter full. Maybe it was just awful promotion, but I can't help to think having NBA players to market around would have helped tremendously. I saw many empty stadiums across the FIBA Americas - much more than the few sellouts in Mexico City or today in PR.
This held true in many other regions too - yes a few countries got behind this process, but most didn't and I cant see how this was a finacial success for most domestic federations. I am sure FIBA got their cut regardless and didnt share in the downside.
DAZN is a problem....but I think that was the best Canada Basketball could do at the time with so much unknown. Hopefully we see cable broadcasting the next time around at this gains momentum.
I actually like the home/away format - but why can't they jam all these all into the summer across two summers? How hard is it to have 3 rounds of home/aways every week or so for a month in the summer? That seems less travel and less to ask from the players, coaches etc. This in-season stuff is awful and needs to stop. Most of the players and national federations hate it. It is just nor fair for all countries.
One of the huge unforeseen advantages Canada got out of this format, was once we settled on a core group of players that were committed (Tom and Phil Scrubb, Ejim, Anthony, Landry, Heslip, Best) we clearly got better and better each time they played together. And we were using player that knew the FIBA game/rules. What are usually two huge disadvantages for Canada in the summer tournament format actually become a level playing field once players played together enough and understood their system, coaching, roles, team play etc.
I am happy that things turned out better than expected for Canada, but that doesn't mean this is a good system. We had better depth than most appreciated - our best Euro pros are so much better (at FIBA ball) than most in this country appreciate. We had better systems and coaching once guys had some time to play together (Rana could be a big step up from Triano and don't underestimate JD Jackson). Also this qualification system does indeed take away the risk of "the one bad" game allowing the better teams to shine through. We were murdering teams in the 2015 FIBA Americas, and had a similar record and point differential after pool play as we do here. We have been dominating the youth levels for a a long time time. Our depth shouldn't have been a surprise - we have way more talent and depth than any FIBA Americas nation save the US. It has been this way for awhile.
