Olynyk chasing gold in New Zealand

For the Gonzaga fans in the reading audience . . .

By GREGG DRINNAN
Daily News Sports Editor
Kelly Olynyk of Kamloops is in New Zealand, prepared to write another chapter in his basketball career.
Olynyk, a 6-foot-10 forward who played this season with the South Kamloops Titans, is traveling with Canada’s under-19 basketball team. It will take part in the ninth FIBA U19 world championship that opens Thursday and runs through July 12 in Auckland, New Zealand.
“It’s going pretty good down here,” Olynyk wrote to The Daily News after arriving in Auckland.
Team Canada, coming off a victory in the 23rd annual Mondial Juniors de Basket in Douai, France, held a brief training camp in Hamilton and departed Friday.
“We left for New Zealand on the 26th,” Olynyk wrote, “and arrived here in the morning of the 28th, which was weird because it’s almost like June 27, 2009, never existed in my life.”
There are 16 teams in Auckland, with Canada in a pool with Australia, Syria and Spain. Three teams from each of four pools will move into the second round with the top eight from there advancing to the quarterfinals.
“It all comes down to how you start off and things like that, but we have a chance,” Greg Francis, Canada’s head coach, told Doug Smith of the Toronto Star. “Defensively, I think we have a chance to be as good as the top three or four teams in this tournament.
“Any national team at any level, if our best players are playing well, I think we’ve got a good chance to be in that final eight and have a chance to win a medal.”
Olynyk was named the tournament MVP in France and will be looked to for scoring in New Zealand.
“He can score at will,” centre Mike Allison told Larry Moko of the Hamilton Spectator. “It’s really amazing to watch. He can finish everywhere around the hole and away from it.”
Allison and Olynyk, along with about half the Canadian roster, were teammates at the National Elite Development Academy, which has been based at McMaster U in Hamilton. However, Canada Basketball announced this week that it has had to scrap NEDA because of budgetary reasons.
“The program produced significant results, allowing Canada to develop teams that qualified for this year’s under-19 men’s and women’s world championships,” stated a Canada Basketball press release. “But a change in federal funding criteria meant NEDA would no longer receive the ($500,000) a year promised when the program started.”
gdrinnan@kamloopsnews.ca
gdrinnan.blogspot.com