Canada beats Brazil at FIBA Americas, one step closer to Rio 2016 berth

EDMONTON – The Canadian women’s basketball team is one win away from securing a berth at the 2016 Rio Olympics.

Nayo Raincock-Ekunwe led the way with 18 points as Canada advanced to the gold medal game of the FIBA Americas women’s basketball championship with an 83-66 semifinal victory over Brazil on Saturday.

“It feels amazing to get to the final,” Raincock-Ekunwe said. “It’s my first international tournament with the senior team. To be in this position is amazing. It’s a great feeling.”

Miranda Ayim added 11 points for the Canadians.

“Brazil really challenged us and had a good game plan against us,” Canada’s coach Lisa Thomaidis said. “We needed to play very well to beat them today. That was a great game for us to have to win to get through to the final.

“It was great for us to be tested in a close game and have to adjust our tactics.”

Iziane Castro Marques had 15 points for Brazil, which was already through to the next Olympics as the host nation, a position that was up in the air until just before the Americas tournament due to a squabble over unpaid fees to FIBA.

Coming off their impressive gold medal win over the United States at the recent Pan American Games in Toronto, the Canadian women entered the 10-team tournament ranked third in the Americas and 10th in the world. Brazil was ranked second in the Americas and seventh in the world.

Canada was able to stake out a 27-22 lead over Brazil in the first quarter and narrowly extended that to a 45-39 advantage at the half in its toughest test of the tournament.

The Canadians seemed to get a boost when Brazilian coach Luiz Zanon was ejected for disputes with officials early in the third quarter and jumped out to a 70-55 lead heading into the fourth.

Canada will now face Cuba in the gold-medal match on Sunday after the Cubans came back for a 89-79 overtime victory against Argentina in Saturday’s other semi.

The Canadians outscored their round-robin opponents by a staggering 218 points to go 4-0 in Group A, including a dominating 92-43 win over Cuba on Thursday.

“The score in our first game against them was not indicative of that team,” Thomaidis said. “We have no delusions of grandeur going into tomorrow’s game, thinking it is going to be easy. Cuba will look very different than the team we saw a few days ago. But we will be prepared, we’ll be ready.”

There has been a long history between the two teams of late, with Canada beating the Cubans 71-68 at the Pan Ams.

The two teams also played each other twice at the last FIBA Americas in Mexico in 2013 where the Canadians beat Cuba 53-40 in the preliminary round finale to win their group. The Cubans bounced back to defeat Canada 79-71 in the gold medal game three days later.

Should the Canadians fall to Cuba on Sunday, they have at least earned a second chance at qualifying for the 2016 Olympics at next year’s FIBA women’s Olympic qualifying tournament.

Notes — It has been 20 years since Canada has won the Americas tournament, last winning the only other time it hosted in 1995 in Hamilton… Canada was without backup point guard Shona Thorburn, who suffered an ankle injury earlier in its round-robin game against Cuba.