TORONTO – Having not been together physically as a team since February of 2019 before their training camp started earlier this month, Saturday was a long time coming for Canada’s senior women’s national basketball team.
Not that the team appeared to show much rust despite the layoff.
In what can be considered the team’s first warmup event in advance of the Olympics later this summer, Canada kicked off its 2021 FIBA Women’s AmeriCup with a 101-41 demolishment of the U.S. Virgin Islands.
Canada is currently ranked as the No. 4 team in the world with expectations for both themselves and from others to medal at the Tokyo Games, and Saturday’s game proved to be an excellent showcase as to why.
As a team blessed with athleticism and speed, Canada is one of the top defensive teams in the world and it showed as Canada held the U.S. Virgin Islands to just 26.7 per cent shooting and forced them to turn the ball over 20 times.
So smothering was Canada’s defence that it didn’t surrender double digit points to the Virgin Islands until there was 3:48 left to play in the second quarter.
“We wanted some good defensive stops, making sure that our foundations and our habits were really solid for the rest of this tournament,” said long-time national team member Miranda Ayim after the game.
But as impressive as Canada was defensively, that was probably something most expected. What was a little more surprising, however, was how potent Canada’s offence was, particularly from three-point range.
Veteran guard Nirra Fields opened scoring for Canada with a triple, and that proved to set the tone for the team as Canada went 15-for-31 from deep.
#AmeriCupW @NirraFields @jamiegracescott @jamiegracescott @CanBball pic.twitter.com/oaqADGXZfV
— FIBA Women's AmeriCup (@americupw) June 12, 2021
Even more encouraging for Canada offensively than its ability to bomb from outside, though, was the strong outing seen from some of the team’s younger players.
Canada is without its WNBA talent – Kia Nurse, Natalie Achonwa and Bridget Carleton – at the AmeriCup in Puerto Rico. This trio is expected to join the team before the Olympics, but in the meantime it’s opened up more opportunities for younger stars like college players Shaina Pellington, Aaliyah Edwards, Laeticia Amihere and Merissah Russell.
Though not each of these young women had world-beating games, they all showed enough Saturday to at least give Team Canada head coach Lisa Thomaidis some pause about possibly bringing these kids with her to Tokyo.
In particular, Pellington, the oldest of this group of four, was fabulous, finishing with a game-high 16 points as her explosive first step and acrobatic finishing ability proved to be too much for any Virgin Islander to handle.
Additionally, the 18-year-old Edwards and 19-year-old Amihere both impressed with 13 and 10 points, respectively, and their future potential was apparent with both flashing impressive athleticism, skill and strength.
Overall, Canada’s offence was crisp as it shot 55.7 per cent from the field and every player but Nayo Raincock-Ekunwe scored for them and the team ended up assisting on 25-of-34 made field goals.
“It was a great start for us,” Thomaidis said. “We’re really emphasizing getting great shots and ball movement and I thought we had a good start doing that today.”
But if you are looking for something to nitpick about the club’s performance on Saturday, it would be in the 20 turnovers the team committed. That’s too many, particularly because a lot of them came on unforced errors with the team being careless and picking up offensive fouls. Although, according to Thomaidis, these mistakes are just part of the process of getting their offensive rhythm back.
“We need to be aggressive,” Thomaidis said. “And so, you know what, we’d rather see that than passive play. And, as a result, you’re going to see some more offensive fouls at this stage of the tournament. So we have no problem with that.”
Yes, as Thomaidis said, those offensive foul turnovers can easily be corrected as the tournament, and the team’s summer ahead of the Olympics, continues.
So while it’s true that the U.S. Virgin Islands weren’t the stiffest of tests for Canada, Saturday’s big win was still a good, confidence-building win for the team nonetheless.
A 60-point victory isn’t a bad first step after the kind of layoff the team had before Saturday’s game after all.
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