tough matchup against the home nation
Yvonne Ejim and Team Canada kicked off group play in the 2024 Olympics against the host nation, France, at the Pierre Mauroy Stadium situated just outside of Lille.
Entering this game, France was predicted to win this match with a betting line of -7.5 and were carrying the 3rd highest odds of winning the tournament with Canada sitting at 8th. However, entering the tournament, Canada was actually ranked higher than France with the former checking in at 5th and the latter at 7th.
In the first quarter, the Canucks looked up to the part as they were dominating the inside as all but one basket came from inside the point and lead at the break 18-15. However, things fell apart from there as they could only score 2 points in the subsequent quarter while Le Bleus scored 23. Coach Lapeña called multiple timeouts across the rough patch that included everything from missing easy bunnies to silly perimeter turnovers to missed defensive assignments, but nothing could right the sinking ship that represented this quarter of basketball.
Maybe it was the intensely pro-France crowd or magnitude of the moment, but when Team Canada came out, they looked nothing like that second quarter team as they held France to returned to their strong play of the first period. This lead to the home team shooting just 42.9% overall in the game and 25.8% from deep while also getting out rebounded 42-35, but Canada couldn’t generate either enough quantity of enough efficiency on the offensive end to overcome their halftime deficit with the team ending up losing 75-54.
While I don’t particularly have an opinion about Olympic Basketball overall, I do have an opinion about Yvonne Ejim not playing in this game. With such a blowout, how come Coach Lapeña didn’t play the bench a bit more? The forwards for this team, Kayla Alexander (35 minutes), Kayla Achonwa (21 minutes), Aaliyah Edwards (21 minutes) shot for a combined 3 for 13 and totaled for 11 points. I’m not saying necessarily saying that Yvonne Ejim would’ve outplayed her fellow front court mates, but when you’ve got a French team that’s rolling out substitutions like Leonard Hamilton running a hockey team (they played five bench members 15 minutes or more), why not at least throw out the youngin’ to see what she’s got while conserving your stars for the remaining games? I don’t know, I’m not a coach and I’m barely a writer so take my opinion for what it’s worth.
Team Canada plays again on August 1st at the optimal viewing time of 7:30am EST. Yes, that means you folks on the West Coast will having to wake up at FOUR IN THE MORNING to catch this. They’ll be playing against an Australian team that’s coming off a shocking defeat to a Nigerian team that hadn’t won an Olympic match in 20 years and had the second best odds to win the Tournament before everything kicked off behind the US.
While losing to France was less than ideal for their group standing, Australia losing keeps the door open for the Canucks to punch their spot into Knockout Round. Earning wins against the Opals and D’Tigress would likely place the Canadians into the second position, thereby securing automatic qualification, they could drop one of those games and still move onward if they rank as one of the top 2 of the third place teams.
I’m not entirely sure what statistic the Games will be utilizing to rank those third place teams as the media guide does not clearly state, but I would assume it comes down to point difference. If this is the case, Canada will have to have an impressive win against one of their two upcoming opponents as they are currently -21, which is only ahead of Japan (-26) and China (who’s played two games and sits at -23).
Regardless of Canada moving on, I hope that Yvonne Ejim gets to play and if she doesn’t play, she has an amazing time. If you can’t tune in tomorrow, make sure to DVR it or check it on Peacock’s replay section!