By Alberto de Roa

 

Canadian Roy Rana coached the World Select Team in the Nike Hoop Summit, held last week in Portland (Oregon, USA). They lost against USA (92-80) even the crazy performance of congolese Bismack Biyombo ('92), from Fuenlabrada (ACB), who made the first triple-double ever in the event: 12 points, 11 rebounds and 10 blocks. Eurohopes talked with Ryerson College (CIS) coach once the big game ended.

 

-What can you tell us about the game?
I don't think we play as good as we did in the week of practice. But, as the game requested, we started to see the guys playing the way they had in the practice, they looked very good then. But we shoot the ball so poorly as we did (some of it can be credited to the American defense), even from the free throw line. We went nervous, we went down big and we tried to fight back. We did an admirable job trying to do that, but in the end is hard to beat the US team when you're down.

-Did you expect more from some of the players?
I wouldn't say disappointed, because they expect a lot from themselves in the big stage. For us, we just want to try to give them the great experience, and we were hoping that all could play great, but that's not realistic. If we had a four-game or seven-game series we would have probably seen their talent shine, so you gotta be fair to the kids. Some of them play well, some of them didn't play so well. But my work as a coach is to help them to have a great experience, and I'm not disappointed. They're great kids, and they did a great job.

-Did you expect this performance from Bismack Biyombo?
I expected a lot of things that he did. He's a very special athlete, he plays really hard all the time. Did I expect the number that he did? No, but I'm no surprised.

 -It was your first experience as the head coach of the World Team. How do you feel about that?
Oh, I loved it. I loved every minute, because we had not great talent, but also great caracter kids. They're all really, really good men, and they made my job really easy. It's a honor to be here and have this oportunity. It would have been nice to end with a win, but that's the game. You win some, you lose some, and tonight we just didn't do enough.

 -Which players have impressed you the most?
That's a tough one because in every way all of them really kind of impress me. But obviously Bismack really stood up with what he does in the court, Kyle Wiltjer and Kevin Pangos are obviously kids I know well. Ponitka is tough, he played well today... All impressed me. Even Neto I think he played well today, though he didn't play well this week. Every single one of them, at one point of time this week, kind of make me say "Wow, what a great player". Fournier had very, very good practices. Karnowski had a couple of really good practices. There's nobody on this team I can't say was disappointing.

 

Photo: Matt Llewellyn