Coach Triano spoke with media before the team departed for Europe.

Q: What did you try to put in place at practice today?

A: We tried to get some organization offensively and defensively. The fortunate thing is that a lot of these kids have played for me, either last summer with the student team. Ideally, you’d like to have a couple weeks to practice and you can put things in, scrimmage and all that. But there are time constraints. We’re at the whim of those countries - they are trying to get ready for the FIBA World Cup.

Q: How seamless is it for guys who have played on the Junior Men’s National Team or the Student team to play for you?

A: One of the things that we did two years ago is we got together as a coaching staff, at all levels, whether that was Dave DeAveiro, Roy Rana or myself, and we put together how we want to play as a nation and we started to develop that. Every team is going to have it’s tweaks based off the personnel but we want to play the same was as a country. I don’t think we’re going to see the rewards of that right now but hopefully, in five years, the kids will come through the junior program and they’ll have been playing the same way for a number of years.

Q: Are you looking for a player who will consistently represent Canada in international competition?

A: I’m hoping it’s not going to be just one name. In the 2000 Olympic, I know that Steve Nash was the guy. In ’99, before we qualified, the team was like us – very, very young. We ended up beating Argentina to qualify. Those Argentinian players who didn’t qualify took that loss and started forming. We need to be more like that and have a handful of players. The longer we play together, the more cohesive we will be.

Q: What do you think of Jason Whitlock’s comments on ESPN about Canadians not having the drive of American and European players?

A: I didn’t hear the quote. I’m not sure what he is referring to. He is entitled to his opinion.

Q: Would it have been easier to sell the summer to guys if you were competing at the World Championships?

A: It would have been easier because the rest of the world stops for the world championships. The NBA players will be going, the Americans will be going, but I don’t know if we would have had the quality of games. We weren’t going to have anyone come to Canada [to play] this year. We’re going to have more quality games on their soil than we would if we were at the world championships.

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