Canada Basketball announced the 12 players who will be heading to Europe to play five international friendlies between Saturday-June 2 and notably missing from the list is UConn star Kia Nurse, who has been the team's leading scorer in every major international competition in the last couple of years.

Canada Basketball communication manager Bailey Williams said that Nurse will be taking this first stage off. Nurse did take part in the training camps used to select the 12-player team that opens the tour by playing host Spain on Saturday at 1 p.m.

The team heading to Spain and France is headlined by 2016 Olympians Miah-Marie Langlois, Katherine Plouffe and Michelle Plouffe. Current college players Shay Colley (Michigan State) and Bridget Carleton (Iowa State) and Stanford commit Alyssa Jerome are joined by Laura Dally, Saicha Grant-Allen, Ruth Hamblin, Sami Hill, Jamie Scott and Laeticia Amihere.

The team will reconvene in Edmonton next month for the second stage of training followed by a six-game tour in China. The final preparations for the FIBA Women's AmeriCup 2017 will begin on July 23 in Edmonton. Nurse is expected to be a member of that team as Canada looks to qualify for the 2018 FIBA Women's Basketball World Cup.