The Canadian Senior Women’s Basketball Team has automatically qualified for the FIBA World Cup

The Senior Canadian Women’s National Team has automatically qualified for the FIBA World Cup which will be held later this year and will take place from September 22nd to October 1st. The Canadian Senior Women’s National Basketball Team reached their spot because, according to Michael Grange of Sportsnet, Belarus has dropped out of the FIBA Qualifying Tournament which means that the other three countries involved in the tournament (Japan, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Canada) all automatically qualified.

The FIBA World Qualifying Tournament will still be held and it will start this Thursday, Feb. 10th and will end on Saturday, Feb. 12th. Now, that all of the countries involved know that they will heading to the World Cup anyways, there will be a slightly different feel to the tournament. Team Canada unveiled their final roster which has 12 players and according to Blake Murphy of the Fan 590 and Sportsnet, they planned to take them all to Osaka, Japan. The teams will still compete, but expect Team Canada to learn how to play under their new head coach as well as try to figure out how to play with each other.

As far as the other two countries are concerned, there are some good players within Team Japan and Bosnia & Herzegovina. Team Japan thrilled Olympic viewers with their run in the Tokyo Olympics in which they won the silver medal. They have a star guard, Rui Machida who helped lead the charge for their historic medal. For Bosnia & Herzegovina, they have one of the best players in the world as their star. Jonquel Jones, the 2021 WNBA MVP plays for that team and is must-see TV in which ever team or league she plays on.

It will quite fun to see both stars, Rui Machida and Jonquel Jones at the FIBA World Cup. For Team Canada, Kia Nurse will be hopefully healed enough to play and there’s a shot that some young college players could make the team. It’s too early to tell, but there is some rising star talent in college for Team Canada. Duke freshmen guard Shayeann-Day-Wilson is one of them. She’s from Toronto, Ontario and has put up quite good numbers for a freshmen.

Team Canada’s games will be televised live on Sportsnet and the start times are either very early in the morning or late at night. Their first game will take place this Thursday, Feb 10th against Japan and will be on at 5 am EST. Their second and final game will take place two days later on Saturday, Feb. 12th against Bosnia & Herzegovina and will be on at 1 am EST.