THE CANADIAN PRESS
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — Canada’s senior men’s basketball team missed out on a medal at the FIBA Americas basketball tournament, but its emotionally drained players will have almost a year to collect themselves before their first world championship appearance since 2002.
Houston Rockets forward Luis Scola scored 27 points as Argentina beat Canada 88-73 in the tournament’s bronze-medal game Sunday.
Pablo Prigioni added 17 points for Argentina, which never trailed in the game.
Four Canadians scored in double figures. Jermaine Anderson of Toronto led Canada with 19 points, while Levon Kendall of Vancouver added 12, Aaron Doornekamp of Odessa, Ont., 11 and Calgary’s Kyle Landry 10.
Later Sunday, Brazil edged Puerto Rico 61-60 in the gold-medal match.
It was Canada’s second loss in a row after qualifying for the tournament semifinals, and a spot in next year’s world basketball championships in Turkey, with an 80-76 win over the Dominican Republic on Friday. Canada lost to Brazil 73-65 in Saturday’s semifinal round.
Much like in its semifinal loss to Brazil, Canada looked drained Sunday. Argentina got off to a torrid start and led 31-8 after the first quarter. The Argentines led by 35 points at one point before Canada made the score respectable by outscoring its opponent 55-39 over the final two quarters.
"We used all our emotion up and we didn’t manage to recover and bring it back for these last two games, which were still huge games for us," Landry said. "It was one thing to qualify for the worlds, it would have been another thing entirely if we were able to medal and establish ourselves even more on the world stage."
Despite the lack of a medal, Canada still comes out of the tournament with a chance for bigger things next year in Turkey. Canada last appeared at the world championships in 2002 in Indianapolis, where they finished 13th.
It was the last significant senior tournament Canada has played in.
"This tournament has provided us with some very special things in terms of understanding preparation at every stage of a tournament, accomplishing a tremendous goal, recovering and regrouping," Canada coach Leo Rautins said. "It’s those things that will take a young team like ours to a very different level."
Canada’s lack of composure showed in its fundamentals. Canada committed 14 turnovers in the game, compared to seven for Argentina.
Argentina also had a slight advantage on the boards, outrebounding the Canadians 39-35.
Despite the score, Canada had a solid day in shooting, connecting on 53 per cent of its shots from the floor. However, the long-range game Canada employed so effectively against the Dominican Republic was absent Sunday as Canada went 5-for-17 from three-point range.
Argentina shot 49 per cent from the floor but was more accurate from Canada long range, making 12 of its 31 three-point attempts.
In the gold-medal match, Puerto Rico’s Angel Vassallo missed a game-tying free-throw with 33 seconds left and Brazil held on for the gold medal.
Phoenix Suns guard Leandro Barbosa led Brazil with 24 points.
Carlos Arroyo had 14 points for Puerto Rico.
