One year after being left off the Canadian senior men's basketball team, Edmonton's Jermaine Bucknor is getting another shot at joining his countrymen in a bid to reach Beijing.
The lone Albertan among 20 players invited to Toronto for the team's training camp next month, Bucknor is hoping to crack the roster that will compete at the FIBA Olympic Qualifying Tournament, July 14 to 20 in Athens.
AMONG LAST PLAYERS CUT
Bucknor returns to Canada after a season in northern France with pro club Le Portel. The 25-year-old suited up for his nation at the 2007 Pan-American Games but was one of the last players cut by Canadian coach Leo Rautins prior to last summer's FIBA Americas Championship.
"I tried to work on some things this year and I'm just going to go into camp with the same mentality I've already gone in with, and show I've improved," says Bucknor, whose emotional departure from last year's team was captured in a national TV documentary, The Rebirth of Canadian Basketball.
"I'm really not going in with any grudge," he continues. "People are asking why I'm going back, why I'm trying out again. It's a personal goal, something I'm doing for myself, and it's always an honour to play for your country."
Seeing time at every position but point guard and centre, Bucknor averaged 12 points, five rebounds and two assists in 24 games this season with Le Portel.
Rautins says Bucknor, who split the 2006-07 campaign with teams in France and Poland, got caught in a numbers game last year. In camp, says Rautins, the six-foot-seven swingman performed best at the power forward spot, where Canada has several larger, more experienced athletes.
"I've always liked Jermaine," says Rautins. "He's got good size (and) aggressiveness. I think it was up to Jermaine to do some things with his game. One, to be consistently playing somewhere was a very important thing (in order) for him to develop. Secondly, he defined his game a little bit."
Bucknor arrives in Edmonton from France this week. Originally, he had planned to join the International Basketball League's Edmonton Chill through the end of their season in late June. The Ross Sheppard grad is considering playing a handful of games for his hometown team before heading east, a scenario the team is fine with.
'AS SOON AS HE'S READY'
"Basically our position is that as soon as he's ready and willing to play, we'll throw a uniform on him and let him go," says Chill assistant general manager Nick Padow, whose club is third in the IBL west division.
Canada finished fifth at the 2007 Americas championship, missing out on an automatic berth for the 2008 Summer Games but securing a spot in the Olympic qualifying tournament. The top three finishers at the 12-team competition advance to play in Beijing.
"I've had four goals in my career," says Bucknor, who played in Virginia at the University of Richmond from 2002 to 2006. "The first was to play NCAA basketball, the second was to play for Canada, the third was to play professionally, the fourth was to play in the Olympics.
"I've accomplished the first three ... and I'm going to keep striving."
