Jay Triano’s long term as head coach of Canada’s men’s basketball team has come to an end.
The 60-year-old confirmed on Sunday night that he’d withdrawn his name from the continuing coaching search for “personal reasons.”
The Canadian team is without a coach ahead of the 2019 FIBA World Cup that begins on Aug. 31 in China.
Canada Basketball’s CEO Glen Grunwald and general manager of the men’s program Rowan Barrett expect to have a coach in place by the end of March.
Triano is a two-time Olympian, the only Canadian to have been an NBA head coach, and coached Canada at its last Olympic appearance, a seventh-place finish at the 2000 Sydney Olympics. He returned to the program as head coach in 2012, and served as head coach through last summer, guiding Canada through one of the World Cup qualifying windows before joining the Charlotte Hornets as an assistant coach.
Among the front-runners are Roy Rana, who coached Canada to a U19 world title in 2017, and Gord Herbert, who coaches Skyliners Frankfurt. Rana coached Canada in four of the World Cup qualifying windows while Herbert coached Canada in one.