(Toronto, Ont. August 8, 2014)--Canada's Cadet Men's National Team opened the U17 FIBA World Championships with a 76-66 loss to France in its opening game of Pool B action at Al Shabab Arena in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.

“It was a tough opening game for us against a very good France team. We cannot feel sorry for ourselves as we have a quick turn around for tomorrow’s game. I’m confident our guys will bounce back and leave it all on the floor,” said head coach Dave DeAveiro.

Eddie Ekiyor (Toronto, Ont.) and Daniel Cummings (Scarborough, Ont.) led Canada in scoring with 14 points each. France’s Stephan Goumbauld scored 28 points and grabbed 20 rebounds.

Canada led 25 to 15 after the first quarter with Marquell Fraser (Scarborough, Ont.) leading the team with 8 points.

Canada extended its lead in the second quarter by 12 points, 42-30 with Ekiyor as the top scorer with 11 points.

France roared back in the third quarter to cut the deficit to two.

Canada led 54-52 after three quarters.

With seven minutes to play in the game France had taken the lead and were up by 3 points.

France was able to extend its lead to eight points with one minute left to play in the 4th quarter.

Free throw shooting was an area of concern for the Cadets, shooting 13-27 from the line.

The starting line-up for Canada was Kobe McEwan (Toronto, Ont.), Howard Washington Jr. (Buffalo, N.Y.), Jerome Desrosiers (Montreal, Que.), Jamal Murray (Kitchener, Ont.) and Eddie Ekiyor.

The team is pleased to have 6’1” PG Nelson Kaputo (Toronto, Ont.) rejoin the team for the World Championships. A full roster can be found here: http://www.basketball.ca/cadet-men-s15145

A full box score can be found here: http://www.fiba.com/world/u17/2014/0808/FrancevCanada#|tab=boxscore_statistics

Canada has the opportunity to rebound from the loss on August 9 when they take on Japan. Tip-off for game two of the Cadet’s U17 FIBA World Championship is set for 6:15 a.m. EST. The game will be live streamed at youtube.com/FIBA.

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