Paris 2024 basketball: Australia women post first Olympic win in getting best of Canada

After losing to Nigeria to open group play, Australia women’s basketball team bounced back with a 70-65 win over Canada on Thursday 1 August at Pierre Mauroy Stadium in Lille at Olympic Games Paris 2024.

The Australians had an efficient day shooting the basketball, going 48 per cent from the field and 40 per cent from deep. Their offence was humming with some fantastic ball movement, racking up 24 assists. The Opals also received a massive boost from their bench, contributing 26 points. Sami Whitcomb led the team in scoring, finishing with 19 points on 7-10 shooting, including 2-3 from long range. Three other players — Stepth Talbot, Marianna Tolo and Cayla George — all finished with 11 points apiece.

"It was closer to Opals basketball than the other day, that's for sure. We've got a really deep team, and that's the beauty of the Opals," George said. "It's great to get the win, and on to the next.

"It was more [about] getting back to basics and playing the Opal style and not overthinking it."

Australia struggled with turnovers Thursday, totalling 20 that led to 20 points for the Canadians. Whitcomb acknowledged that the group must clean this up before a pivotal matchup with France on 4 August.

"It's something we're continuing to talk about, focus on pressure releases through our 'bigs,' but also recognising momentum swings, too. You can have one, but I had two in a row, so it's minimising the back-to-back ones, where they get live ball ones where they can turn those into points,” she said. “In general, just slowing down, getting all the basics, getting good leads, making the right pass. If it's not there, we move it to the next thing. I thought we went in the right direction in this game in terms of that."

Canada, which began their Olympic run with a 75-54 against loss to France, struggled shooting the ball inside the arc, shooting just 31 per cent, but shot 1-15 (47 per cent) from three. Bridget Carleton starred for Canada, scoring 19 points on 7-12 shooting, including 5-7 from three-point land. Canada had two other players in double figures in Kayla Alexander and Kia Nurse.

“I think we started way better than last game. We came out with more energy. We were very disruptive on the defensive end, and we got what we wanted on the offensive end. We were in control of the game for the first half. Second half, we just let it slide,” said Aliyaah Edwards. “We didn't control the game. We couldn’t control the controllable, and they scored off of our mistakes pretty much."

Despite the loss, the Canadian players took positives away from their performance against Australia.

“The grit that we played with, the pride that we played with. Our first showing [against France] wasn't us, and we know that we represent so much more when we put a Canada jersey on,” said Natalie Achonwa. “I was really proud of how we came out today and how we fought. We had some lapses in execution, but no matter what, the grit that we play with is truly who we are, and I'm glad that we showed that today.”

Australia and Canada upcoming basketball schedule

Both teams will be back in action Sunday 4 August. Canada will take on Nigeria at 7:30 a.m. EST and Australia will take on France at 3 p.m. EST.