THUNDER BAY – SPORTS – For the third year in a row, men’s basketball head coach Scott Morrison will be taking on an assistant’s role with Canada’s Junior Men’s National Team (JMNT).
For the past two summers, Morrison has served as an assistant with the U18 JMNT program that placed 3rd at the FIBA Americas in Brazil (’12) and the subsequent U19 group that earned a 6th place finish at the FIBA world championships in Turkey (’13).
This year’s instalment of the FIBA Americas U18 Championship will be hosted by USA Basketball at the U.S. Olympic Training Centre in Colorado Springs, Colo., June 20-24. It will also serve as the qualifier for next year’s FIBA world championships.
“It is a major honour to be asked to work with the nation’s best for a third consecutive summer,” Morrison states. “Just like the previous years, training camp has been a grind, but an unparalleled experience working with a great staff and a top notch group of kids.”
Morrison re-joined JMNT head coach Roy Rana and fellow assistant coach Kirby Shepp a few weeks back for initial workouts with the team in Toronto, as the roster comes into shape heading towards the FIBA tournament in ‘The Centennial State’.
This year Canada’s pool includes Brazil, Puerto Rico, and the Dominican Republic. On the other side are the USA, Uruguay, Mexico and Argentina. More info can be found on the FIBA Americas website.
Some high-profile names expected on this year’s JMNT roster include 6’9″ forward Chris Egi (Markham, Ont.) who is attending Harvard next year, and Montaque Gill-Caesar (Vaughan, Ont.), who attends famed Huntington Prep in West Virginia and will graduate in 2015.
