Marquette Basketball At The 2016 Rio Summer Olympics: 8/10/16

Women’s Basketball

Canada 68, Senegal 58 - This is literally the best Canadian women’s Olympic team of all time. Kia Nurse had 14 points to lead the way as Team Canada set a new team record for most wins in a single Olympic tournament with three.

Canada led by as many as 16 at two different points in the game, but Senegal cut it to just seven at the start of the fourth quarter, thanks to a bucket by Mame Marie Sy with 34 seconds left in the frame. That’s as close as the game would get though, as the Canadians took turns hitting big buckets down the stretch to close this one out.

Katherine Plouffe came off the bench for 12 minutes of action, finishing with 2 points, four rebounds, and two assists.

Men’s Basketball

United States 98, Australia 88 - Carmelo Anthony is good at basketball. Olympic Melo might be even better.

The New York Knicks star finished with 31 points, setting a new American Olympic career scoring record, and eight rebounds as he was the driving force in a huge USA comeback to remain undefeated in group play. The United States needed a 12-4 run just to stay tied at the end of the first quarter, and Australia had a five point lead at halftime. The Americans scored the first nine points of the second half, though, and things stayed tight from there until Draymond Green assembled a three point play to give Team USA a 70-67 lead headed into the final 10 minutes.

Melo swung the game in favor of the U.S. for good with five straight points to give Team USA a 75-72 lead, including the first of four three-pointers in the final frame. Anthony finished with nine long range makes on 15 attempts, which ended up being a new American record for Olympic three-point attempts.

Jimmy Butler played just 6 minutes for the Red, White, and Blue, which may or may not have had something to do with how close this game was. Then again, Butler finished without scoring a point and only added a rebound to his team’s output.

Venezuela 72, China 68 - It was a close final score for Venezuela’s first win of the tournament, but the first half was all over the place. Venezuela had a 25-13 lead after the first 10 minutes, but China nearly matched that with a 22-13 advantage in the second period to make it 38-35 favoring the South Americans at halftime.

Venezuela kept assembling seven point leads in the second half, but China kept punching back. Zhou Qi got China within one point at 64-63 with 1:22 remaining, but the Chinese team would not score again and Nestor Colmenares drained a floater with 15.8 to play to ice the game for Venezuela. That floater gave Colmenares a team high 16 points on the night, while China was led by 17 points from Ailun Guo.

David Cubillan got the starting nod for Venezuela, but only played 14 minutes. He finished with one lone made three-pointer for his scoring in the game, but he added a rebound and an assist.

Up Next

All times Central

Friday, July 12

1:30pm: Canada vs Team USA women (NBC Sports Network)
5pm: United States vs Serbia (NBC Sports Network)
8:30pm: Venezuela vs France (Basketball Specialty Channel)