Canada's women down Austria, Latvia on Day 1 of 3x3 basketball World Cup

CBC Sports

· Posted: Jun 23, 2025 1:25 PM EDT | Last Updated: 6 hours ago

Canada's women, minus prima 3x3 hoops players Katherine and Michelle Plouffe, Canada's women's squad opened World Cup play Monday with a brace of victories successful Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia.

Cassandra Brown and Saicha Grant-Allen filled successful admirably, taking turns dominating connected the tribunal against Austria and Latvia.

The Plouffes, who are duplicate sisters, were incapable to play owed to a scheduling struggle and insignificant injuries.

Brown scored a game-high 9 points to pb the Canadians to their 2nd triumph of the day, 20-15 implicit Austria.

WATCH | Replay of Canada's triumph over Austria:

The 33-year-old from Vernon, B.C., extended her team's pb to 17-13 and led it triumph by making bully connected 2 foul shots with 9 seconds near connected the clock.

Brown was a subordinate of Canada's five-on-five squad astatine the 2019 Pan Am Games and spent 10 years plying her commercialized internationally earlier committing to the 3x3 format, which sees games extremity erstwhile a squad reaches 21 points, oregon the 10-minute clip bounds expires.

Also, the modular three-point enactment serves arsenic the two-point enactment successful 3-on-3, portion baskets made from wrong the arc are worthy one.

Grant-Allen had six points against Austria portion Paige Crozon posted 9 rebounds, tops among each players.

Before the 20-team tournament, Crozon told CBC Sports the extremity is to found chemistry with Grant-Allen and Brown arsenic she and Kacie Bosch person had with the Plouffes.

"There was a level of comfortableness due to the fact that we understood each other's tendencies and determination was a batch of spot that was built," said Crozon. "There's not arsenic overmuch comfortableness going into this tournament. However, I deliberation we're each excited due to the fact that we get to research ways that we tin grow our game."

Live sum of the World Cup volition beryllium disposable connected CBC Gem and CBCSports.ca continuing Monday astatine 11 p.m. ET/8 p.m. PT done to the medal games connected Sunday.

Despite Monday's outcome, the Austrians pushed Canada aboriginal successful Monday's contest.

A two-point changeable from Anja Fuchs-Robetin gave Austria a 6-2 vantage successful the opening 2 minutes six seconds.

It was 8-4 Austria with 6:30 remaining but Canada scored 4 points to gully adjacent and aboriginal went connected a 6-0 tally for a 14-9 lead.

The Austrians didn't fto up, though, arsenic Sigrid Koizar's two-pointer chopped the shortage to 14-12 with 1:43 left. She finished the crippled with 5 points, 3 rebounds and went 3-for-3 from the foul line.

Grant-Allen was the communicative against Latvia, a crippled successful which the Canadians ne'er trailed en way to a 17-10 victory.

The 29-year-old from Hamilton had a game-high 9 points, including the archetypal 3 from either side, and 8 rebounds.

Grant-Allen played 4 years astatine the University of Dayton successful Ohio, graduating successful 2017 earlier playing professionally successful Russia, Spain and Turkey until 2022.

WATCH | Replay of Canada topping Latvia:

Canada faces No. 3 France connected Wednesday

The Canadian women, who are ranked sixth, led 7-2 midway done Monday's crippled and pulled distant with a 5-0 tally to widen its pb to 12-4.

Brown and Crozon had 4 points apiece.

Canada returns to the tribunal Wednesday astatine 5:10 a.m. ET against third-ranked France and opposes No. 11 Hungary astatine 7 a.m.

Sixteen countries volition scope the single-elimination knockout stage, with part winners advancing to the quarterfinals.

Canada's champion World Cup effect was a metallic medal successful 2022. The squad has won back-to-back regular-season championships connected the 3x3 circuit and earned the inaugural Champions Cup rubric successful March.

It besides mislaid to the United States in the 2024 Olympic quarterfinal successful Paris.

The Canadian men, making their archetypal World Cup quality since 2018, statesman contention Tuesday, facing Austria astatine 2:55 a.m. and China astatine 7 a.m.

Canada's squad features Alex Johnson, who committed to 3x3 full-time successful 2021, alongside Grant Audu, Jerome Desrosiers and Toronto Metropolitan University's Aaron Rhooms.

The Canadians are ranked 17th and grouped successful Pool C with No. 3 France, No. 6 Austria, No. 11 China and No. 14 Puerto Rico.