CANBERRA (FIBA World Championship for Women/Olympics) - If there is cause to believe that Australia's women should remain an elite team and a big threat to USA supremacy in the international game, it's the importance that head coach Brendan Joyce places on player development.

Everyone knows all about the great Opals who have played at FIBA World Championships for Women and Olympic Games, and some of them will continue to have vital roles with the national side.

But a national team program needs to have good, strong and healthy competition for places or it will be in danger of withering away.

That emphasis on development already reaped a big dividend in 2014 when some players who were virtually afterthoughts broken into the Opals' squad that played at the World Championship in Turkey and reached the podium.

"I’m in charge of the center of excellence in Canberra," Joyce said to FIBA.com. 

"We have changed the structure of that. 

"It used to be 12 athletes aged from 15 to 18 years of age but now it's 15 to 25 (years of age). 

"So I'm trying to develop those players in the mid-20s that everyone has forgotten about because they were just looking at the Opals team as it was.

"It's about developing players so now, we're utilizing this center of excellence to bridge that gap and transition those athletes, which we just did. 

"We had Tessa Lavey and Natalie Burton - one's 21 and the other's 25 - that played with us in Turkey and there were two others that just missed out on that team that I expect to be in Rio, and one or two others.

"We're going to have a competitive situation to make this team in Rio. Competition is healthy.”"

They were important players, helping Australia finish reach the podium.

It has to be reassuring for all basketball players to know that if they continue to work hard that failure to make a senior squad after leaving the youth ranks does not spell the end.

Development work, from the very young to those players that Joyce is talking about, those in their 20s, will make a national team program stronger.

"I'm very focused on that," Joyce said. 

"All of the teams that I work with, I do that. 

"I really believe that being a great coach is not just about being a great coach on the night, managing players. 

"To me, and I pass then down to coaches, you need to learn to teach, learn to develop."

Lavey and Burton didn't look out of place at all in Turkey.

Burton's 5.2 rebounds per game while coming off the bench, in fact, equalled that of starter Marianna Tolo.

The two were the leading players in that category. 

The focus on development and teaching also makes it much easier for a coach to make adjustments on the fly.

Joyce lost Liz Cambage, who would have been one of the most dominant players at the World Championship, to injury a week before the start of the event.

He was able to work with Marianna Tolo and get the most out of her.

The 25-year-old ended up leading the Opals in scoring at 12.2 points per game.

She went from not making Australia's 2012 Olympic roster to being a vitally important player at the World Championship.

The center was crucial for Australia to be able to have their celebratory scenes in Istanbul.

Tolo says Joyce is demanding, but she loved playing for him.

"He's hard (on the players) on the court," she said.

"He's got so much emotion and he just shows it. 

"But he's just so focused, and that really helped us in this tournament, just being able to stay with it each moment, each possession."

Joyce is glad that Tolo was able to be a leader.

She really did answer the call in Turkey and helped Australia win, albeit in a different way without Cambage.

"It probably made us quicker with Marianna," Joyce admitted," "but certainly, I'd love to have Liz Cambage's interior presence. 

"It's a huge factor and it's going to be needed if we're going to take the next step and win the gold medal at Rio."

FIBA