Canada Basketball's Senior Women's National Team picked up its first win of 2016 on Sunday, defeating Cuba 77-58 during an exhibition tournament in Palencia, Spain.
Veterans Kim Gaucher and Lizanne Murphy paced a balanced Canadian attack with 11 and 10 points, respectively. Cuba's Arlenys Romero Moinero scored 22 points to lead all players. For the full boxscore visit http://baloncestoenvivo.feb.es/Game/2016005.
Eleven different players scored for the SWNT, which made 29 of 54 attempts from the field, including a blistering 10-for-17 on three-point attempts. Canada had gone 18-for-54 on field-goals and made one three-pointer in a loss to Spain on Saturday.
"I was happy with the way we responded today," SWNT head coach Lisa Thomaidis said. "We played with a little more intensity on the defensive end, we cleaned up some things from yesterday, and on the offensive end it was great to see a number of different players knocking down threes. Coming back from a poor shooting performance last night it was great to see a lot of different players hitting shots."
Point guard Shona Thorburn dished out a game-high five assists, while Miranda Ayim and Tamara Tatham each notched four helpers for Canada, which registered an assist on 22 of its field-goal makes.
"I think we responded well after the game against Spain and we fixed some things that we needed to work on that were obvious mistakes against Spain, so that's a positive," Thorburn said. "We're still getting better each game, and that's something we want to work on, improving a little bit each game. But I think for our second game this summer there are a lot of positive things to bring out of this game."
Powered by the starting unit of Ayim, Gaucher, Michelle Plouffe, Tatham and Thorburn, the SWNT jumped out to an early double-digit lead and never looked back. Canada led 27-16 after 10 minutes and enjoyed a 20-point advantage, 43-23, at halftime. Canada entered the fourth quarter in front 56-37.
Winnipeg's Emily Potter made her SWNT debut, recording seven points and four rebounds in just over nine minutes. Fellow rookies Bridget Carleton and Laura Dalley, who debuted against Spain on Saturday, scored their first points with the SWNT.
Canada is now 1-1 on its five-game European tour, and will travel to France for its next three games, beginning Tuesday when the SWNT meets the host nation at 3pm EST. Follow all the games at @CanBBall
Full SWNT roster here: http://basketball.ca/en/team_programs/womens-team