The Canadian women’s basketball team is suddenly in the market for a new coach. And the change shouldn’t stop there

As roster cores evolve and results trend the wrong way and a path to the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics awaits, Canada Basketball made a sensible move with its senior women’s program.
Victor Lapeña, who took over in January 2022, is out as head coach. The slate is clean for officials to figure out the best way to attack coaching, training, roster construction and the allocation of scarce funds in the next four-year period.
It’s not that Lapeña, a Spaniard hired to replace Lisa Thomaidis, was a bad coach. He led Canada to fourth place at the 2022 FIBA World Cup and  third at the 2023 AmeriCup, but the team’s fortunes have been declining steadily.
The Canadian women barely qualified for this year’s Paris Olympics, went winless in three outings, failed to reach the quarterfinals (for just the second time since the 2012 London Games) and have dropped to No. 7 in the world rankings.
For a team that spent almost a decade in the top five and was thought to be a legitimate medal contender at every major global event, the precipitous drop made change necessary. And there’s no better time than now to arrest that descent, with Paris in the history books and the future of the program and roster very different than the one long-time fans have been used to.
Natalie Achonwa, a four-time Olympian, has already announced her retirement and it’s unclear whether mainstays Kia Nurse, 28, and Kayla Alexander, 33, want to stick around for the World Cup in two years and the Olympics in four.
There is a new era of players — Aaliyah Edwards, Syla Swords, Laeticia Amihere, Cassandre Prosper, Yvonne Ejim and a host of prospects — and they may benefit from sweeping change at the top.
With Lapeña gone and assistants Carly Clarke, Noelle Quinn and Steve Baur all coaching free agents, the time for ripe. It’s not to say that the highly regarded Clarke or WNBA head coach Quinn or the long-serving Baur won’t or shouldn’t be involved. But unencumbered by contracts, it opens things up tremendously for Canada Basketball.
The change will, and should, include every aspect of the program.
Canada Basketball may decide there’s no need for a full-time women’s coach and leave the job of identifying and nurturing up-and-coming talent to some new structure. Would that include de facto general manager Denise Dignard? Does the organization need to run several short training camps, or can it aim solely at the World Cup and Olympics? How heavily should any new structure skew toward Canadian coaches?
With the growth of women’s basketball in Canada and the WNBA coming to Toronto in 2026, which is sure to spawn even more interest, this is a crucial time and resetting the slate now makes the most sense.
To be sure, Canada Basketball’s women’s program is not broken — not by a long shot — and that needs to be pointed out. There is an abundance of proven talent, more in the pipeline and likely some not yet identified in the current system who can help. There is also a decade-long history of significant global success and international respect that began with Canada’s ascension up the rankings in the early 2010s.
What Canada Basketball has rightfully done is give itself a chance to examine every aspect of the women’s game. It’s too bad it cost Lapeña his job, and there are sure to be other departures as well. But change is necessary for growth.
The cycles of Canadian women’s basketball have been clearly delineated over the years. The program was a truly global power in the 1980s, then there was a lean period for too long that finally ended in the 2010s.
Canada has taken small steps backward in the last two years. Deciding now to re-examine every aspect of the program is smart and necessary.