LE\u00d3N, Mexico \u2014 Canada is back in the gold-medal game at the FIBA U18 Men\u2019s AmeriCup for the first time since 2018.<\/p>\n
Canada will face the United States in Sunday night\u2019s final at 10 p.m. ET, live on YouTube, after cruising past Puerto Rico 115-49 in Saturday\u2019s semifinal at Domo de la Feria.<\/p>\n
The result guarantees Canada its best finish at the event since 2018, after the Canadians captured bronze in both 2022 and 2024.<\/p>\n
Canada never trailed against Puerto Rico, taking control early and extending the gap throughout all four quarters. The Canadians led 20-12 after the first quarter before breaking the game open with a 35-9 second quarter, taking a 55-21 lead into halftime.<\/p>\n
Canada outscored Puerto Rico 28-11 in the third quarter and 32-17 in the fourth, with its final margin of 66 points matching its largest lead of the game.<\/p>\n
It was the second meeting between the two teams in the tournament after Canada defeated Puerto Rico 101-48 in group-stage play.<\/p>\n
Javion Tyndale helped set the tone in the first half, finishing with 13 points on 5-of-9 shooting, six assists and a game-high plus-40 rating. He also delivered one of the game\u2019s signature moments, knocking down a deep three-pointer at the buzzer to close the first half and send Canada into the break with momentum firmly on its side.<\/p>\n
\u201cI saw the clock winding down and Nathan Yambayamba threw a great save pass and I knew I had to get a shot up,\u201d said Tyndale. \u201cI took one dribble to the middle, felt confident and just let it fly. As soon as it left my hands I knew it was going in and gave us some momentum going into halftime.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tyndale said his role as a point guard is to bring energy, control the pace and get his teammates involved.<\/p>\n
\u201cI try to make good decisions, create opportunities and help the team build momentum whenever I\u2019m on the floor,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Stefan Ilic anchored Canada inside with 13 points and 14 rebounds in just over 17 minutes. Ilic shot 6-of-8 from the floor and finished plus-35 as Canada controlled the glass and limited Puerto Rico\u2019s second-chance opportunities.<\/p>\n
Lyris Robinson had a game-high 18 points, along with three steals and a block, while Malik Olajuwon added 17 points and five rebounds. Settimo Yugu also posted a double-double with 13 points and 11 rebounds as Canada\u2019s depth continued to show.<\/p>\n
Canada finished with 56 bench points and dominated nearly every statistical category. The Canadians scored 60 points in the paint, 41 fastbreak points and 27 second-chance points. Puerto Rico had four fastbreak points and one second-chance point.<\/p>\n
Canada\u2019s most decisive run came late in the first half and carried into the third quarter, when the Canadians scored 16 unanswered points to turn a 49-21 lead into a 65-21 advantage.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LE\u00d3N, Mexico \u2014 Canada is back in the gold-medal game at the FIBA U18 Men\u2019s AmeriCup for the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":689929,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,3,21,19,22,20,25,24],"class_list":["post-689928","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","tag-america","tag-news","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/689928","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=689928"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/689928\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/689929"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=689928"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=689928"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=689928"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}