Can either Nick Nurse or Rick Pitino lead Canada or Greece to the Olympics?

VICTORIA (Canada) - Nick Nurse and Rick Pitino aren’t notorious for their international basketball coaching feats. Championships on  American soil highlight their resumes.

But they’re revered in other parts of the globe. The American coaches, who have won championships at the highest levels of North American professional and collegiate basketball, also own European league titles. They’re trying to add to their legacies this week at the FIBA Olympic Qualifying Tournament in Victoria.

"This is a big opportunity for us, as it is for everybody here," Nurse said. "There’s a big prize at the end of this thing: Heading straight to the Olympics."

Nurse, head coach of Canada, hosts of the qualifying event, won championships as a coach in Great Britain long before he earned beloved status in Canada. He saw firsthand the impact success can have here when he led the Toronto Raptors to the NBA title in 2019.

No team from Canada had won an NBA championship before Nurse’s Raptors did. Its effects have reverberated throughout the country, Nurse said.

"I think it certainly impacted youth playing. I think you’ll probably see the benefits of that here a few years down the road," he said. "I think there really is a golden age of talent. I think we’re up to 20-plus NBA players now, including two-ways, a ton of (NCAA) Division I players, high-level EuroLeague players, and it just keeps on coming."

Eleven days after winning the NBA title, Nurse was hired to lead the Canadian national team. He’s assembled a roster full of NBA talent that has Canada positioned to clinch its first Olympic berth since 2000.

 

If the country’s reception of the Raptors’ championship was an indication, a trip to the Olympics would further ignite the basketball frenzy Nurse sparked.

"It was a super-huge moment, winning the title for Toronto, on a lot of fronts," Nurse said. “It was from coast to coast, North to South. The whole country was locked in. And even to this day, today, I still get stories of where they were when they were watching it.

"Even a couple of my younger players today. One of them told me he was in Niagara and he was in a big arena. The place was packed and everybody was watching it on the jumbotron," Nurse continued. "That’s another one I haven’t heard before."

Unlike Nurse, who won championships in Europe before making it big in America, Pitino built his reputation in the U.S. The Hall of Fame coach won NCAA Tournament titles with Kentucky and Louisville prior to his triumphs in Europe.

Hired by Greek club Panathinaikos in 2018, Pitino led them to back-to-back Greek Basket League championships. He also coached the Puerto Rican national team at the 2015 FIBA Americas Championship.

Now, he’s coaching Greece’s national team. The Greeks haven’t qualified for the Olympics since 2008 but, like Canada, would inject the country with a newfound basketball buzz if they returned.

"Most European countries, soccer’s way up front. It’s not in Greece," Pitino said. "In Greece, basketball is close. Basketball is very important to their fabric of sports."

It won’t be easy. Greece boasts the most decorated coach in the tournament, but injuries, retirements and schedule conflicts have depleted the roster. Their star, Giannis Antetokounmpo, is amid the NBA playoffs with the Milwaukee Bucks. And Greek basketball legend Vassilis Spanoulis recently announced his retirement.

"This is a young, energetic team that the fans would absolutely fall in love with if they did accomplish this goal," Pitino said.

Fittingly, the cherished head coaches will square off to open the tournament on Tuesday, June 29.

"We’re excited about it," Pitino said. "We think it’s a great challenge."