McKenzie to oversee national women’s basketball development team

Fabian McKenzie better have his passport up to date, because he has a busy summer ahead with Canada’s national women’s basketball program.

The Cape Breton University Capers women’s head coach will serve as bench boss of the national women’s development team and also as a guest coach for the national women’s team. His work with Basketball Canada will have him globetrotting for the next four months.

“It’s nice to be asked to come back, just to know that you can help influence the growth of basketball all over the country. That’s pretty cool,” he said. “To get asked to be head coach again for a team is fantastic and be a guest coach for the senior team is an amazing feeling, too. It’s nice to be recognized at that level.”

McKenzie leaves today to join the national women’s team to prepare for a trip to the Czech Republic, Serbia and France from May 25 to June 10. He’ll return to Canada to take the helm of the development team as they prepare for the 27th Summer Universiade in Kazan, Russia, July 6-17. In August, he’ll be back with the national women’s team for a training camp prior to another trip to Brazil.

This summer’s Universiade will be McKenzie’s second stint as head coach with the national women’s development team. He was at the helm of the club last year, after acting as assistant coach of that team when they competed at the Universiade in Serbia in 2009.

McKenzie served as a scout and video coach of the national women’s team in the summer of 2011. He’s looking forward to working with new head coach Lisa Thomaidis.

“What I’ve learned over the past six years in my involvement has been more than you could imagine,” he said. “It’s just a tremendous exposure to this level of basketball and to try and bring it back here and get young players to play the international style and bring it back to CBU and get our players to play that way, it’s been totally eye opening to say the least.”

With the Capers, McKenzie is a four-time Atlantic University Sport coach of the year and was named Canadian Interuniversity Sport coach of the year in 2006. He’s led the club to five AUS banners, including three straight from 2009-2011, as well as silver (2006) and bronze (2011) medal finishes at the CIS championship.

This article was sourced from the Cape Breton Post.

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