There should be little doubt remaining as to Bob Donewald Jr's commitment to the future of the Chinese national team.

Secure in the knowledge China would take fourth place in Group C regardless of the outcome against Turkey, the coach sent out his reserves for a 40-minute crash course in international basketball. The end result was an 87-40 rout that left the home fans in a celebratory mood.

Just how much there is to celebrate for Chinese fans remains to be seen. Thursday's result was always going to be irrelevant once Cote d'Ivoire failed to beat Puerto Rico by 12 points, leaving China on top of a three-way tiebreaker between the teams, but what about the performance? Donewald has gone to great pains to develop confidence and a fighting spirit among his young players, a mentality easily punctured by spending 40 minutes being physically dominated in front of a hostile crowd.

Make no mistake — Donewald is in this for the long haul. He said before the FIBA World Championship his target was the 2012 Olympic Games, and he reiterated that after the Turkey game.

"Today we played the young guys and it will be an experience they will never forget," he told the FIBA website. "They made a lot of mistakes, but two or three years from now they can look back on it as a great lesson."

The problem with taking the long view, though, is that its proponents are not always around to see the fruits of their work. Seeing China bossed around for 40 minutes likely did not earn the coach any brownie points from those already skeptical of the animated American and his unorthodox methods.

Donewald's approach is sensible, of course. Yi Jianlian is slowed by an inflamed Achilles' tendon, Wang Zhizhi is in the twilight of his career and China was always going to struggle, even at a watered-down Worlds. The hope now is that his choice to throw the youngsters in at the deep end does not damage the spirit built thus far, undoing all the team's good work to this point.

China has accomplished everything it was supposed to in Turkey. It won the game it was supposed to win (Cote d'Ivoire), showed promise with late leads against Greece, Puerto Rico and Russia, and it advanced out of the group phase for the third successive major tournament.

Lithuania, a team China should know well, is up next on Tuesday. It will be much later, though, when we will find out whether Donewald's faith in youth pays dividends.

Paul Freelend is a sports copy editor who, being a night owl since elementary school, appreciates the 2 am tip-offs from Turkey. Send him your sleeping tips at pfreelend@yahoo.com.