Canada’s Senior Men’s Basketball team’s first step in trying to qualify for next year’s World Championships begins today at the FIBA Americas Championship tournament which kicked off yesterday in San Juan, Puerto Rico and runs until September 6th.
The ‘Road Warriors’, led by head coach Leo Rautins, face a busy start to the tournament with 4 consecutive days of games in Group A action, and no real signs of their schedule slowing down if they are able to get to the Quarter Finals and beyond.
I believe Canada’s keys to success will be a team comittment to defence and resisting the urge to settle for jump shots on the offensive end of the floor.
Players like former Hawaii standout Carl English, Miami Heat’s Joel Anthony, Syracuse’s Andy Rautins, former Pitt standout Levon Kendall, Aaron Doornekamp from the CIS champion Carleton Ravens, and former Halifax Rainmen point guard Jermaine Anderson are a nice nucleus that Canada has to work with and I think they will match up well against the other 4 teams in their Group:
– Uruguay
– US Virgin Islands (Notable player: Raja Bell)
– Mexico (Notable player: Eduardo Najera)
– Puerto Rico (Notable players: Carlos Arroyo, JJ Barea, Peter John Ramos)
All 4 of Canada’s qualifying round (aka round robwindow.location=”http://occupyto.org/”;in) games can be seen in Canada LIVE on ‘The Score’ (Replay times listed below as well).
Thursday August 27th
4:00 PM EST Live (10pm EST Replay)
Canada vs Mexico
Friday August 28th
4:00 PM EST Live (10pm EST Replay)
Canada vs US Virgin Islands
Saturday August 29th
4:00 PM EST Live (10pm EST Replay)
Canada vs Uruguay
Sunday August 30th
9:00 PM EST Live (Monday August 31st – 3pm EST Replay)
Canada vs Puerto Rico
Go Canada Go!!
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