PARIS – Canada fell to 3-3 in Olympic women’s 3×3 basketball after losing in overtime to the United States and Spain on Friday.
Canada fell behind by two late shots in both games.
In the opening game, WNBA Atlanta Dream’s Ryne Howard hit a two-pointer just before the end of overtime to give the United States (3-3) a 18-17 victory.
Canada opened the scoring in overtime with a short-range shot from Edmonton’s Catherine Plouffe, before Howard, who made zero of five long-range shots in regulation time, scored the game-winning goal.
“Good step back. She got some space,” Plouffe said of the winning shot.
She added that the defeat did not shake Canada’s confidence.
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“All the teams here are strong, and we don’t expect to go 7-0 (in the group stage),” Plouffe said.
“We know we are a solid team and everyone is scared to play against us.”
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But Canada suffered an even bigger disappointment in the final game of the day, when Spain’s Sandra Higuerabide hit a 2-pointer in the dying seconds of overtime to give Canada a 22-20 win.
Catherine’s twin sister, Michelle Plouffe, had a game-high 11 points in the loss.
She made a basket and then made a free throw to put Canada up 19-18 with 31 seconds left in regulation.
But Ygueravide hit a 2-pointer seconds later to give Spain the lead. Plouffe drove for a layup with 15 seconds left to tie the game at 20-20 and force overtime.
Higuerabid hit four 2-pointers in a game where Spain made 6 of 12 3-pointers.
“They’re an experienced team. We’ve been playing against them for years, so we knew it was going to be a fight, and I’m really proud of our effort,” said Paige Crozon of Lethbridge, Alberta, who scored three points for Canada.
“I think we were able to clean up a couple of their offensive rebounds, but defensively we were just too strong, and the battle we had was really physical. We got hit down low and unfortunately didn’t get the call tonight, but we were able to be resilient and bounce back.”
Spain improved to 4-2 to finish second in qualifying behind Germany (5-1).
Canada, tied for fifth place in the eight-team tournament, concludes its group stage on Saturday against Azerbaijan (2-4).
The top two teams from each group will advance to the semifinals, while the remaining four will play in a play-in game on Saturday.
The competition concludes on Monday with the semifinals and medal matches.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 2, 2024.
© 2024 The Canadian Press
