BUENOS AIRES (FIBA Women’s AmeriCup) - The tournament's defending champions have been meeting all previous expectations at their appearances at the FIBA Women's AmeriCup 2017 in Argentina. In fact, practically the whole competition’s scenario set it as the favorite team to keep the title and continue on to the FIBA Basketball World Cup Spain 2018. Apart from not having some of its experienced players that have retired the National Team after Río 2016 —such as Tamara Tatham— and not counting on WNBA Indiana Fever player Natalie Achonwa for this tournament; the National Team continue to portray interesting talents and replacements.

Power forward Miranda Ayim (29) and point guard Kia Nurse (21) are part of the new process that is taking place in the team lead by Lisa Thomaidis. They have comfortably won the three games that they have already played against Cuba, Puerto Rico and Mexico. At the current AmeriCup, Nurse has averaged 11.5 points and 5 rebounds per game, while Ayim has averaged 5 and 3.5, as well as 2.5 assists.

“It's a new role for us to be in, it's a big job, but I think we're taking it as a challenge and understanding, trying the little intricacies of being a leader,” Nurse assured. She then added: “I think the older guys who have been here for a while have been doing a good job of trying to take the young guy under their wing to help them with the little things that we can.”

Ayim shared her analysis of what this new group —that is playing together for the first time— could bring: “We're sorting out the kinks and we're seeing a lot of out strengths. There's a few different voices that are on this team, that are on the court and off the court, and I think that serves the group well.  We have players who are leading in points, we have players who are leading in rebounds, and we have players who are leading in defense. So, all of those components of the team come together to make us a strong team", she explained.

Ayim also praised the newcomers and assured that “we're a lot more athletic and dynamic that we were. So, the transition is just bringing that into a balanced and thoughtful type of basketball that we want to continue to show when we're playing some tough teams.”

According to Nurse, the future for her country's team looks quite promising: For Canada, it's only going to go up from here, and I think there was a great foundation that was built by the veterans that came before us and put us in the position that we're in now and from this point on, us young ones are helping to move that forward.”  

Canada is on their path to being first in Group B and will end their participation in the Group Phase with a match against Paraguay at 1:35 PM (host country hour).

FIBA