WINNIPEG, MB – Manitoba Bison men’s basketball head coach Kirby Schepp was named as head coach of Team Canada men’s basketball team for the Gold Coast 2018 Commonwealth Games.

“It is a tremendous honour to once again be given the opportunity to represent Canada internationally,” Schepp said. “The Commonwealth Games is an incredible international event that I know will be a valuable experience for our athletes and coaches as they continue their development. We have an outstanding staff that I look forward to working with and I know will help the team be ready for the challenge in Australia.”

From Canada Basketball: No stranger to the Canada’s men’s national team program, Schepp, 41, has spent the past eight summers representing his country on a variety of teams. Schepp was on the staff for some of Canada’s biggest wins, including last summer’s historic gold medal winning team at the FIBA U19 Basketball World Cup 2017. He was also a member of Canada’s bronze medal winning team at the 2010 FIBA U17 World Championship for Men.

Over the course of his 23 years in coaching, Schepp has been behind the bench for more than 50 different teams and has spent the last nine seasons as the head coach of the Manitoba Bisons. Since joining Manitoba, the Bisons have qualified for the Canada West playoffs in each of the past four seasons. The Bisons have made back-to-back Canada West Final Four appearances and last season competed in the U SPORTS Men’s Final 8 for the first time since 1986.

Before joining Manitoba, Schepp spent five years as an assistant coach at the University of Winnipeg and has coached high school and club teams for over 15 years. Schepp is trained in Canada Basketball’s train to compete certification and a NCCP certified learning facilitator.

Basketball has only been on the Commonwealth Games program once, at Melbourne 2006 (Canada did not enter teams in the tournament), and Australia won both the men’s and women’s tournaments at those Games.

The 2018 men’s tournament includes four teams in Pool A: Australia, Nigeria, New Zealand and Canada and four teams in Pool B: England, Cameroon, India and Scotland. The Canadian women are also in Pool A, along with Australia, England and Mozambique, while Pool B features New Zealand, Jamaica, India and Malaysia.

Files from Chris Zuk of the University of Manitoba

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