Olynyk, Canada lose, advance to second round

By GREGG DRINNAN
Daily News Sports Editor
Kelly Olynyk and the Canadian U-19 basketball team fell to 1-2 with an 82-75 loss to Spain today at the FIBA U-19 world men’s championship in Auckland, New Zealand.
Spain jumped out to a 23-12 lead after one quarter and, ultimately, that really hurt Canada. The Canadians held a 21-15 edge in the second quarter and actually came back to lead by a point in the fourth quarter.
But, in the end, the Spaniards won.
Olynyk finished with 10 points, but was only 5-for-23 from the floor, including 4-for-18 from two-point range. He did have a game-high 13 rebounds.
Canada and Spain went into today’s game with 1-1 records, Canada having routed Syria 99-53 in its previous game.
“Syria is a less structured team then Australia was but are still a very tough team,” Olynyk, a graduate of South Kamloops Secondary who will attend Gonzaga U in Spokane in the fall, wrote before today’s game in his update to The Daily News.
Team Canada was especially concerned about the presence of Abd Al Wahab Al Hamowi, Syria’s 7-foot-1 centre.
“They have a huge presence in the middle,” Olynyk noted. “But we lucked out a bit in that the centre got into early foul trouble and wasn’t able to get going at any point. He ended up fouling out, playing less than 10 minutes.
“With the big guy out we were able to attack the hoop more and put more pressure on their defence.”
Which is exactly what Canada did as it stretched a 37-31 halftime lead to 73-42 after three quarters.
“We were up by six at halftime before stepping it up huge in the third quarter and taking a 30-point lead,” Olynyk wrote. “We ended the game winning by 46. Everyone on our team played and played pretty well.”
It was a much-needed victory after a n 88-77 tournament opening loss to Australia.
“We’re going to have to build on the win and take it into the game tonight against Spain,” Olynyk wrote. “With Spain, everyone on their team can shoot the ball and is fundamentally sound. But if we play as a team and play our game I think we’ll be in good shape.”
Spain opened the tournament with a 79-53 victory over Syria and then lost, 69-62, to Australia.
The top three teams from each of four four-team groups advance to the second round.
With New Zealand experiencing its winter right now, Olynyk said he has seen some sunlight of late after arriving last weekend to two days of solid rain.
“The weather . . . has cleared up and been sunny and about 10 degrees,” he wrote. “It gets colder at nights . . . dropping fairly low. The rain has come back today, but hopefully it will be short-lived.”
Canada ends up third in Group C with its 1-2 record, but that will be good enough to push it through to the second round. It next plays Monday, 7:30 p.m., in Auckland — which is Monday, 12:30 a.m. Pacific Time. That game will be against Croatia, which went 3-0 to finish atop Group D.
gdrinnan@kamloopsnews.ca
gdrinnan.blogspot.com