Canadian team roster finalized for FIBA Americas

Canada Basketball has released the roster for the Senior Men’s National Team competing at the 2011 FIBA Americas Championship in Mar Del Plata, Argentina, from August 30 – September 11. The roster is an impressive list of players led by an experienced group of eight athletes from last year’s team.

NBA talent includes: Joel Anthony (Montreal, QC). Anthony recently completed his fourth season with the Miami Heat, Cory Joseph (Pickering, ON), who was recently selected in the first round of the 2011 NBA draft by the San Antonio Spurs and Andy Rautins (Syracuse, N.Y.), who spent his rookie season with the New York Knicks.

Other members of the team include European professionals Carl English (St. John’s, NL), Jesse Young (Peterborough, ON), Jermaine Anderson (Toronto, ON), Denham Brown (Toronto, ON), Levon Kendall (Vancouver, BC), Aaron Doornekamp (Odessa, ON) and Jevohn Shepherd (Toronto, ON). Kelly Olynyk (Kamloops, B.C.), who played for Gonzaga University last year returns to the team and rounding out the roster is Jeff Ferguson (Toronto, ON). 

TSN2 will be the exclusive Canadian broadcaster for the 2011 FIBA Americas Championship. Coverage begins on Wednesday, August 31 with Canada vs. Brazil at 7:30 pm ET live. TSN2 will broadcast all of Canada’s preliminary games with addition games to be confirmed. Canada is a member of Group A, together with Brazil, the Dominican Republic, Cuba and Venezuela. The top four teams from each group move onto the quarter-finals.

This summer’s FIBA Americas is the FIBA Americas zone qualifying tournament for the 2012 Summer Olympics in London. The top two finishers of the tournament will qualify for the Olympics; while the teams that finish third to fifth will participate in the FIBA Olympic Qualifying Tournament from July 2 – 8, 2012.