Guard’s injury deals blow to Team Canada, Syracuse

Canada wasn't the only loser when shooting guard Andy Rautins injured his left knee in Wednesday's FIBA Americas Championship opener against Brazil.

Syracuse also was severely impacted after Rautins tore the anterior cruciate ligament in his knee in the second quarter of Canada's 75-67 loss at the Thomas & Mack Center. Rautins, a 6-foot-5-inch junior, started for the Orange last year and averaged 7.2 points per game as a sophomore.

"You work so hard to come out here," Andy Rautins said Thursday before Canada defeated Venezuela 80-73 in Group B pool play. "It's been a dream of mine to ... play for this team. So it's disappointing."

His dad, Leo, who coaches Canada, believes the injury could have been avoided and blames FIBA for it.

"We had eight minutes" to warm up, Leo Rautins said after FIBA shortened the warm-up time from the normal 20 minutes to 9:15 because the Panama-Uruguay game went overtime and set the schedule behind.

"Now, I can assure you if that was a USA game, it wouldn't have happened, and that's what bothers me," he said. "That's the one thing when you get into a lot of these international tournaments; things just aren't set on a level playing field.

"You don't know (if the short warm-up contributed to the injury). ... I asked Andy, 'How do you feel?' And he said, 'tight.' "

Jim Boeheim, Rautins' coach at Syracuse who also is serving as an assistant for Team USA, saw the play in which Rautins got hurt and immediately knew it was bad news.

"If there's a bright side to this, it's that he still has another year. He hasn't used his redshirt year," Boeheim said. "As far as him playing, I never think about it. I always see it as a positive. He's gotten better the last two years playing for Canada, and he could have gotten hurt playing pickup ball in Syracuse."