More Barbosa does in Canada

Leandro Barbosa’s turning into a true pain for Canada’s senior men’s basketball team.

Three nights after blitzing Canada for 31 points, the Brazilian and Phoenix Suns guard went off for 22 last night as Brazil dumped Canada 73-65 in the semifinals of the FIBA Americas world qualification tournament in Puerto Rico.

Canada, by virtue of a Friday night win over Dominican Republic, has already qualified for the world championships starting next August in Turkey and the games this weekend are solely to determine seeding in the 24-country worlds.

Canada will face either Puerto Rico or Argentina today at 6:30 p.m. in the bronze medal game to wind up the tournament.

Barbosa, who sat out a game Friday after torching the Canadians in the quarter-final round, made eight of 11 field goal attempts and two of six three-pointers while getting to the free throw line only once. Anderson Varejao of the Cleveland Cavaliers had 16 points for the winners.

Canadian coach Leo Rautins used his bench liberally in the relatively meaningless game, shuttling all 12 members of the squad in and out. With almost half of the world championship field still to be determined – six teams will come out of this month’s European qualification tournament and another four will be added by world governing body FIBA as wild cards in mid-December – trying to figure out seeds or preliminary-round groupings is impossible, giving Canada and the other FIBA Americas teams a chance to experiment this weekend with their spots already secured.

Joel Anthony of Montreal and the Miami Heat, led Canada with 17 points while Andy Rautins had 12 and Jermaine Bucknor 10.

Brazil, also with a spot in Turkey locked up, used its bench equally liberally, especially in the final five minutes of the 40-minute game.

Comments

[thauoftkidd]

Still proud of Canada. They qualified for the Worlds and that's most important. Hopefully they can recruit nash and go from there.

[yasir]

hey doug,
the game recap on the tournament website says carl english has left the tournament to resolve some personal issues.... any idea whats going on with that??

Blogger's note: No, will check after the game today

[Imran]

No Raptors' news? I guess tomorrow will have something about Chris Bosh's Twitter comment. Maybe?

[doug]

well its good for the blog and us b-ball fans we have had this qualifying tourney (and a successful one at that for Canada) to get us over the summer the summer doldrums.

But time for a mini-rant as they are good once in awhile as a stress releaser..What continues to mystify me by reading some of the comments is how certain players are constantly over-valued. Is it because of reputation?, peoples misperception of these players present ability?,their past play? or what is it?, it is perplexing. Two examples are Pops who for whatever reasons drew a strong but misguided passionate following, and the latest one involves a Canadian in Magloire.This fellow did have some talent and was a solid ballplayer 5 years ago but he is nowhere near that player anymore. He's moreorless the last option on a lean bench in Miami and has been playing the NBA team carousel game for the last few years for a reason. Magloire to me is one of those players that had talent, that enabled him to have a NBA career. But did he truly have passion, drive love for the game I don't think so and that has caught up for him, and his story is more common then not with other players as well.

So we have evolved from Pops to Magloire marginal player A to marginal player B, so those that are asking about the likelihood of Magloire being on the National team please give it a rest. He is not any better then what we have there, would be in competition for a spot with a player such as Anthony,Young who have busted their butt off and sacrifaced for this team and do you think for a minute Magloire would be satisfied sitting on the bench for most of the game without raising a stink, not very likely. Now to exclude any NBA player would be a mistake as a Nash or a Bonner would be a good fit, as Bonner is a role player, has been, is a team guy, and well Nash is Nash. But Magloires boat has sailed, in regards to a useful contribution people are talking about him from memories of the past not the present.

[Erc]

Regarding Pops, we're not talking about memories of the past, unless you're referring to the most recent NBA season. We're talking reality, present day.
Don't believe Raps fans loved him cause they over-valued him. Just saw him as a guy who could get the occasional rebound (see Garbo) and play like he meant it (see Garbo). We weren't looking for him to take Bosh's place (or even Garbo's), just POB'S.
Doug, you are smart guy who is sometimes so smart, you're dumb. (see your namesake).
Agree with you about Magloire, you MUST be a smart guy.