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ROAD WARRIORS DRAW GROUP D, DEFENDING CHAMP SPAIN FOR 2010 WORLDS - by basketball.ca staff

Last Updated: December 22, 2009

ISTANBUL, Turkey � Canada Basketball�s Senior Men�s National Team, the �Road Warriors,� will play against Spain, France, New Zealand, Lithuania and Lebanon at the 2010 FIBA World Championship. The opening round for the red and white will take place in beautiful coastal city of Izmir, Turkey.

FIBA, in co-operation with the Turkish Basketball Federation, hosted the draw Tuesday in Istanbul to determine the placement of the final 24 teams from five continents. The teams were assigned to four pools of six for the first round of competition.

�Turkey as an organizing committee gave us a special taste of what the atmosphere and the competitions will be like,� said Maurizio Gherardini, Managing Director for the Senior Men�s National Team and Senior Vice-President, Basketball Operations for the Toronto Raptors.

�It was a very well organized event with a lot of media and a lot of participation. You can almost start feeling the excitement of the [World Championship] coming up."

Canada (#19) is in a competitive pool led by Spain, currently ranked third in the world. Not only is the Spanish team the defending champion, winning the world championship in 2006, but they also earned a silver medal at the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing.

Rounding out Group �D� is Lithuania (#6), New Zealand (#13), France (#15) and Lebanon (#24). This group is the only one to have two wild card entries in Lebanon and Lithuania.

"We've been looking forward to the draw to see who we will be matched up against in the worlds and what pool we're going to be in,� commented Leo Rautins, Head Coach for Canada�s Road Warriors.

�There are no easy games. Everybody is there for the same reason: to represent their country and try to medal. There are some very good teams in our pool and I think that it�s important that we approach every single game as a must-win game.�

Canada not unfamiliar with 1st-round opponents

Canada has had some experience against its first round opponents. In official games, including FIBA Americas Championships, World Championships and Olympic competitions, Canada has had some success against both New Zealand and Lebanon, going 1-0 with both squads. France and Spain both lead their matchups, with records of 1-4 and 3-8 respectively.

In 2008, Canada�s Road Warriors had a rare opportunity to play on home soil with the Jack Donohue Classic in Hamilton and Toronto. The team hosted Lebanon and New Zealand in an exhibition tournament that saw the squad dominate the Lebanese team earning a 2-0 record. The Road Warriors split the series with the Tall Blacks (1-1).

�Lebanon and New Zealand are two teams that we're really familiar with, so going against them we will at least have some prior experience,� stated Joel Anthony, starting centre for Team Canada and a member of the NBA�s Miami Heat.

�Looking at France and Spain, they obviously have a lot of talent. Spain, with Pau Gausol, Rudy Fernandez and good star players that play in Europe; they will be looking to medal in the next Olympics. And France with Tony Parker, they have a lot of talent and are going to be coming in really hungry, just like any other team looking to prove themselves.�

The one wild card for Canada in the world championship is the wild card entry - Lithuania, as the red and white have never played an official game against this talented squad.

�We were lucky to have two wild cards,� added Gherardini. �But one of those wild cards was Lithuania and if Lithuania comes with their entire group of players available then they are as good as any other team, and they can be a medal team. So we have to consider them as the third big time team.�

Working on a plan to get ready for Turkey

Wayne Parrish, executive director and CEO of Canada Basketball, said there's a lot of work to be done organizing a plan to get the team ready for the world championship.

"Our sense right now is that we are looking at an exhibition schedule of between eight and 10 games leading up to the worlds," Parrish said during a conference call Tuesday.

"We will probably begin with a camp in Canada in early August. We are considering the possibility of doing a mini-camp in July in Canada that might be three or four days. The model that we are working with there is a bit like what Team Canada did last summer with the hockey in Calgary.

"And then we would start the official camp in August in Canada, have some exhibition games in Canada, and then move to Europe in the middle of the month."

Rautins said during the conference call that he's looking at adding a couple of players to strengthen the team -- Matt Bonner of the San Antonio Spurs and possibly Jamaal Magloire, Anthony's teammate on the Heat.

"Matt Bonner has expressed a strong desire to play, and we�re keeping our fingers crossed that that will be the case,� he said.

And Rautins said he has talked with Magloire.

"Jamaal has been extremely positive with the program and the direction that things are going in, and I�m excited about the potential that he may consider playing."

'We respect all of our rivals': Spanish coach

Spain's coach, Sergio Scariolo, meanwhile, is not taking any of his Group D opponents lightly.

"We respect all of our rivals that have quality,� said Scariolo, who guided Spain to a EuroBasket gold medal this year in Poland.

�It's difficult to evaluate them without knowing which players they will take. Lithuania is the most complicated rival.�

Many are wondering if the FIBA World Championship will throw up another clash between Spain and the United States in a potential rematch of the Beijing Olympics gold-medal game.

Team USA faced their biggest test against the Spanish but survived and will go into the FIBA World Championship as favorites.

�It's too early to talk about trying to avoid meeting USA in the next rounds,� Scariolo said.

�Of course, those who face them will probably have a harder task, although in a given game, we have proved we can compete against them. We need to start from zero with the aim of winning game by game."

Canada (FIBA #19) is one of six FIBA Americas nations to qualify for the event, joining dominant teams from Argentina (FIBA #1), USA (FIBA #2), Brazil (FIBA #14) and Puerto Rico (FIBA #10). Top-ranked squads from the other FIBA zones include Spain (FIBA #3), Greece (FIBA #4), Serbia (FIBA #5), France (FIBA #15), China (FIBA #9), Australia (FIBA #11) and host country Turkey (FIBA #18).

The 2010 FIBA World Championship is being labelled the largest global basketball tournament of the year. Four pools of six teams will compete in a preliminary round robin. The top four teams in each pool will advance to the second round of 16 and play down to the championship.

The 2010 FIBA World Championship runs from Aug. 28�Sept. 12 in four Turkish cities -- Ankara, Kayseri, Izmir and Istanbul. This will be Canada�s 13th appearance, with the Canadians finishing as high as sixth place in both 1978 and 1982.

2010 marks 16th edition of FIBA World Championship

Held every four years, the FIBA World Championship determines the world's top nation in men's basketball. The tournament was first held in 1950 in Argentina and next year's edition in Turkey will be the 16th.

Seven different teams have been crowned world champions. Leading the medal table are the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia and the USA, all having won the championship three times.

Spain is defending the title it won in Japan in 2006, while Argentina is currently the world's best ranked basketball nation. The 2010 FIBA World Champion will automatically qualify for the 2012 Olympic Basketball Tournament in London.

For a complete listing of the tournament pools and 24 participating teams visit the official tournament website at turkey2010.fiba.com.

(with information from FIBA)

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