Citing the way his team played yesterday against Venezuela -- sometimes good, often bad -- head coach Jay Triano is warily optimistic about Canada's chances heading into the medal round at the Americas Olympic qualifying tournament.

"It's hard to say," Triano said when asked if Canada -- which concluded its second round yesterday with a 93-86 overtime loss to Venezuela -- is playing well. "So far in the big games we have. But I would say in the other games, the not-so-important games, we haven't."

Yesterday's contest against Venezuela (3-4) would rank as one of those inconsequential contests to which Triano was referring.

Having already ensured itself of a berth in one of tomorrow night's semi-final games, Canada (4-3) used last night's encounter as nothing more than a tune-up for the hard slogging ahead. Canada's semi-final opponent will be Argentina, which won an earlier match-up between the two teams, 94-90, last week.

"Right now, what we're thinking about is not who we play but how we play. [We'll] try to be as combative as possible, play hard and play the best basketball we can," Argentina head coach Reuben Magnano said.