Arizona Basketball: Bennedict Mathurin competes with Canadian Olympic qualifying team

With the Arizona Basketball team still, months away from the 2021-22 season, Bennedict Mathurin will compete for the Canadian Olympic qualifying team. 

It has been a busy off-season for a few Arizona Basketball players, especially as Dalen Terry tried out with team USA for the FIBA U19 Tournament, while Azuolas Tubelis and Tautvilas Tubelis compete with Latvia, and Oumar Ballo competes with Mali. Well, Bennedict Mathurin is another Wildcat with a busy summer.

A standout freshman that had a big year with the Wildcats last season, naturally, the Canadian-born wing drew enough interest to compete with the Senior Men’s National Team ahead of the FIBA Olympic Qualifying Tournament.

Arizona Wildcats

A native of Montreal, Ben showed a lot of promise for the Wildcats in 2020-21, starting in 12 of 26 games for Arizona. Ben finished the year averaging 10.8 points and 4.8 rebounds, even scoring a season-high 31 points in a road win over Oregon State. The Beavers went on to make the Elite Eight this past year.

Well on Monday, Canada Basketball announced the 19 athletes that will could potentially participate in the Tournament, and to our delight, Mathurin was named as one of them.

Also joining Mathurin on the qualifying roster are NBA stars NBA RJ Barrett (New York Knicks), Luguentz Dort (Oklahoma City), Corey Joseph (Detroit Pistons), and Andrew Wiggins (Golden State) among others.

For 2021-22, soon-to-be sophomore Bennedict Mathurin could be primed for a big season with Arizona Basketball.

While it is hard to say just how long Mathurin will be with the team, or what kind of impact he will have should he make the final cut, however, this is a great opportunity for him to compete with some of the best in the sport.

To me, he could potentially be Arizona’s best player for next, if not, at least top two. Mathurin oozes potential every time he plays, and I think we are only seeing a small glimpse of what could be a special career.

Canada will play host to one of four of the FIBA Olympic Qualifying Tournaments and will see matchups with Greece (June 29) and China (June 30).