Later Friday, 2004 Olympic champion Argentina beat Mexico 78-70 in the other FIBA Americas semifinal and became the sixth nation to make the Olympic field that will eventually be 12 teams.
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While Canada, Mexico and glorious Argentina have previously got semifinal berths, the last recognize and to discover the finishing rankings later on second round remain to actually be compiled.
Luis Scola led Argentina into the FIBA Americas Championship decider as Canada suffered a heartbreaking loss to Venezuela.
While many of his teammates stubbed their toes throughout the game, Olynyk went bonkers with 34 points and 13 rebounds on 11-of-13 shooting.
Venezuela was led by forward Windi Graterol’s 25 points.
Venezuela stepped on floor prepared to do whatever was necessary to qualify for the Olympic Games for the second time since 1992, but overcoming a Canada team filled with seven talented National Basketball Association players, at first glance, seemed improbable. “Many people doubted that we were capable of this”. Canada had tuned up for the tournament with a ideal 4-0 run at the Tuto Marchand Continental Cup in Puerto Rico.
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“It was David versus Goliath and we came on top, we leave everything out there”, Venezuela coach Nestor Garcia said, according to The Associated Press. Andrew Wiggins had nine points for Canada, which will have another shot next year during the world qualifying tournament. “They scored important baskets in key moments and we had a hard time stopping that”. Another couple of stops might have sealed a victory, but Venezuela hit back-to-back ambitious threes, setting the table for an outrageous comeback. But instead of playing against relatively weak Western Hemisphere teams, they’ll have to fight through a couple of tough European teams that don’t qualify at the now ongoing Eurobasket.
