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.
In the Paris aftermath, both general manager Denise Dignard and head coach Victor LaPena left their positions.
Steve Baur, a former assistant, stepped into Dignard’s role. Together with Canada Basketball CEO Mike Bartlett, he identified and hired Fortner.
“The future is incredibly bright here. And so that was one thing. My conversation with Steve, his vision, I could see it. And I just enjoyed our conversations and where they wanted this program to go.” Fortner said.
“And I’m like, yes, I wanna do that. I’ve been there, I’ve done that. And I’m hungry to do that again.”
When Fortner says she’s “done that,” it’s not an understatement.
She has coached at every level from high school to NCAA to WNBA to Team USA and even tried her hand in media with multiple stints at ESPN. As the American’s head coach, she led the team to a gold medal at the 2000 Olympics against Australia in Sydney, racking up a 101-14 record along the way.
On March 31, after six years leading Georgia Tech, Fortner announced her retirement, later saying college basketball had changed so much that it was no longer enjoyable for her.
A few days later, Baur came calling. On May 5, she was introduced as the new Canadian women’s basketball team head coach.
“I like competing at the highest level. I’m a very competitive person, and these are players that are driven. Well, that’s fun to coach,” Fortner said.
Through five practices, Fortner was already beginning to make her mark on Team Canada. She said she wants to ramp up the offence, using more speed and letting players read and react.
But her biggest goal is for Canada to regain its tough defensive identity.
And the players are bought in. Even before Fortner’s arrival, a group of players gathered in November, discussed their ambitions and vowed to sacrifice for each other to achieve them.
“We talked about the things that they came up with, what they wanted to commit to and what they were willing to. There’s a sacrifice that has to be had because national teams aren’t together all the time,” Fortner said.
The scarcity of practice time has been a thorn in the side of previous coaches in LaPena and Lisa Thomaidis, with just three-to-four opportunities per year for everyone to gather.
In Fortner’s first training camp, she is missing WNBAers Kia Nurse, Bridget Carleton and Aaliyah Edwards.
But she’s embracing the challenge by unifying the team around its goal of reaching the Olympic podium.
“You help them see what that process is every day in practice, when we come together, that culture build of what this is about. Every time you step into the doors of Canada Basketball, you know you’re at Canada basketball. Here we go,” Fortner said.
Two-time Olympian Kayla Alexander said the bitterness of defeat in Paris is fuelling the returnees from that team.
“Just realizing if you want different results you gotta do something different. So I think that we’re trying to implement and create a culture and new standards that will help us get the results that we want moving forward,” Alexander said.
Alexander added that she’s noticed a difference in practice, with every player being held accountable.
“There’s repercussions and there’s consequences for every action that you take. So I think we’re trying to set a standard early so that we can stick with it and keep that consistent,” she said.
For Gibb, who is coming off a season at BYU where she was named conference freshman of the year, a new coach provides new opportunity.
“It’s good for me as a younger player, because I am learning so much and I just love taking everything in and trying to grow my basketball knowledge. They’ve been intense, which is exciting because I feel like to be a great team you have to give it your all and work really hard,” Gibb said.
It’s a refrain that Fortner, who said sacrifice was the key to Olympic gold, might be heartened to hear.
“It’s totally about the we, not the me. Totally. And so checking your ego and checking whatever you need to check,” Fortner said. “When you get your time on the floor, go get it. Bust it for that gold medal.”
