Canada overpowered by USA in finals
Canada’s tournament comes to a familiar end, losing to the USA 111-60 in the FIBA U16 Americas Championship finals.
Game Recap
Canada finishes second and will take home the silver medal for the fourth straight year.
Despite a good effort from the U16 boys, they simply ran into a superior American team. They are extremely talented down low and on the wing.
USA’s Vernon Carey Jr., a 2019 top 3 prospect in the USA was named MVP of the tournament averaging 14 ppg and 6 rpg.
Canada saw an early lead in the first quarter erased by an 11-0 USA run and were never able to climb back from that deficit.
The USA continued to dominate in the second quarter outscoring Canada 23-8 and leading 49-24 at the half.
One of the few bright spots offensively for Canada in the first half was 16-year-old point guard Luka Sakota scoring 8 points.
The third quarter went much like the first half with USA outmatching Canada in every category. Poor shot selection led to easy buckets for the Americans on the other end.
USA was able to push the ball up the floor at such a high pace that they would be left alone for open dunks and open shots almost every trip.
In a positive change, the leaders of the team Cashius McNeilly and Shemar Rathan-Mayes stepped up in the fourth. Their pride and determination to battle shined through.
McNeilly and Rathan-Mayes made five out of their nine combined threes in the fourth quarter and helped Canada close out their tournament in a positive way.
Canada finished the game shooting 24% from the field, 36% from deep and made all six free throws.
Even though Canada’s tournament ended in a very lopsided defeat, the players should be proud of how they played all week in Argentina.
Losing against a great American team should only help the Canadian boys improve and hungrier to play against them at the next level.
Top Performers
Luka Sakota: 17 points | 3 rebounds | 2 assists
Cashius McNeilly: 15 points | 71% (3PT%)
Shemar Rathan-Mayes: 14 points | 4 assists | 2 rebounds
Paris Shand: 4 points | 7 rebounds | 1 steal
Benjamin Krikke: 3 points | 5 rebounds
Malachi Ndur: 8 rebounds | 1 assist | 1 block
