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Canada Basketball – SASKATOON, SK (March 2, 2018) – Canada Basketball announced today that Team Saskatoon will represent Canada this summer at the upcoming FIBA 3×3 World Cup 2018.

Michael Linklater (C), Michael LieffersNolan Brudehl and Steve Sir will have the honour of playing for Canada as the country competes in the FIBA 3×3 World Cup for the first time in history.

“Our team is both proud and excited to represent Canada at the FIBA 3×3 World Cup 2018,” said team captain, Michael Linklater.  “We have worked extremely hard over the past five years to make this a reality.  Our goal is to have a strong finish and show the world why we are one of the best teams in 3×3. This is the first step to helping Canada qualify for the 2020 Olympics,” Linklater said.

At age 35, Linklater is Canada’s highest ranked individual player (50th) with 431,400 points.  A five-time participant in the FIBA 3×3 World Tour, Linklater, along with Lieffers, won silver at the 2014 FIBA 3×3 World Tour Final in Sendai, Japan.  This past year, fans voted Linklater as the Most Spectacular Player (MSP) of the FIBA 3×3 World Tour season.

Linklater, Lieffers and Brudehl all played basketball at the University of Saskatchewan, while Sir spent time at both San Diego State University and Northern Arizona University.  Over the course of five seasons, Sir established the NCAA record for highest percentage in three-point shooting (46.9) and won the Lausanne Masters and World Tour Final shoot-out contests last year.

Team Saskatoon made four appearances at the World Tour last season, including a 2nd place finish in Saskatoon, 5th in Prague, 9th in Lausanne and 12th in the FIBA 3×3 World Tour Bloomage Beijing Final.

Canada enters the FIBA 3×3 World Cup 2018 ranked 29th globally (4th Americas) after accumulating 5,413,740 3×3 Federation ranking points.  The 3×3 Federation Ranking is based on the 3×3 Individual World Ranking, which takes into account the number of points collected by players in the last 12 months.

The FIBA 3×3 World Cup 2018 will feature 40 teams from 37 different countries in Manila, Philippines from 8 to 12 June.  The 55,000-capacity Philippine Arena, located just outside Manila, in Ciudad de Victoria, will be the venue for the FIBA 3×3 World Cup 2018.

The event – organized by FIBA in cooperation with the Basketball Federation of the Philippines (SBP) – will be the fifth edition of the competition. Russia’s women and Serbia’s men won the last edition in Nantes, France on June 17-21, 2017.

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For more information, contact:

Matt Walker

Manager, Communications

Canada Basketball

(289) 244-9993

mwalker@basketball.ca