Cuse Country

Yesterday you probably saw this post on TNIAAM or this blog entry and this article from Donna Ditota, all dealing with Andy Rautins’ return to the court on Monday, and how it seemed that everything went pretty well in his first game action since his injury. Sean of TNIAAM found a second perspective from the Dino Nation blog (Toronto Raptors/Canada Basketball). Well, the Post-Standard didn’t feel like writing a second Rautins story in two days, but Dino Nation did cover Canada’s second game, which took place yesterday (which also happened to be Canada Day) and had this to say about Rautins:

Rautins Seems Back On Track For Syracuse This Fall

For those of you that may be fans of Syracuse Orange, you would be interested in the progress of Andy Rautins. I will say I am far from an expert in some ways. But as someone that does watch a fair bit of basketball, I saw little to no effect on Rautins who is coming off a major injury suffered last year vs Brazil. He is wearing a brace on the repaired knee. But he seems to be moving without issue or concern. I also noticed him in today’s game playing at times as a play maker as oppossed to a shooter. He made several nice passes and was setting players up with easy scoring chance. Rautins would look for his own offense after the game was long decided in the 4th quarter. It is a good sign that he was able to play a great deal of minutes in a quick evening to late afternoon turn around. So I would say if you are a fan of the Orange it seems you will have your player back at a level that is not unlike when you last saw him.

He’s not kidding. I’m very heartened to hear that Andy played on back-to-back days with apparently no ill effects. The fact that he can do more than shoot is not news to us. That’s how they do it in Canada.

I also found the box scores (in PDF format) from the two games, courtesy of Canada Basketball’s website. In the first game, Andy had 9 points in 14 minutes, but only one steal otherwise (no assists or rebounds). In the game yesterday, he had 5 points, 5 assists, 3 steals and 1 rebound in just under 20 minutes of play. Canada will continue the exhibition series with Lebanon and New Zealand this weekend, with games on July 4 and 5 in Toronto. Then the actual Olympic qualifying tournament begins on July 14.

Two other quick roster notes: (1) Andy is the only college player on the Canadian National Team; they have a couple of NBA guys and the rest play in various European leagues. (2) One of his teammates is former Pittsburgh pain-in-our-butts Levon Kendall, who currently plays in Greece.