In the recently held FIBA Americas, we were supposed to behold the emergence of the next basketball superpower, team Canada.
They were the heavily favored team in the tournament in the absence of Team USA. Indeed, with no less than nine NBA players, only the USA could have done better. Having NBA Rookie of the Year Andrew Wiggins doesn't hurt, either.
However, Team Canada failed to snag the goal of the tournament, a ticket to the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics as they fell to non-heralded Venezuela team.
The game ended with controversy, though, as the game winning free throw arose from what is perceived as a questionable foul call.
See the video from SB Nation. They also questioned the call along with other sports figures who tweeted their reaction.
"Venezuela's Gregory Vargas proceeded to make a free throw with 0.3 seconds left to seal the victory. Did you see the foul? No? Well, you're not alone."
However, the players themselves would not place the blame solely on the officials. Cory Joseph, who will play for the Toronto Raptors in the coming season, told the Toronto Star that they "played crappy."
"I played horrible," Joseph said."I didn't lead my team today. We didn't play well as a group. We played crappy. I'm just disappointed. I didn't do my job. We didn't do our jobs, either."
That was a mature and responsible reaction from one of the team's leaders, but he still had something to say about the alleged "phantom call."
"I'm not one to bash the officials . . . I never do, I never complain," Joseph said. "I can say it shouldn't have came down to that. But in terms of the call, I think it was crappy. It is what it is but it shouldn't have come down to that. I feel like they took a shot, the ball bounced up 20 feet in the air."
"To call Doornekamp (his teammate on whom the fould was called) on that is kind of different (but) there's no excuses. It never should have came down to that."
He concludes: "We played horrible."
The heartbroken Canadian fans had high expectations on what is the best Canadian team ever assembled. "cbg@lakehead" shared his reaction on The Star's comment thread:
"Just one nba player showed up. Coaching or character or both? What a waste of effort from previous games. And confidence froma huge fan base. As big an upset as Serena(sic)."
Canada is not out of the Olympics but they need to do it the hard way. A qualifying tournament is set in July next year, right before the Olympics.