With both sides gearing up for June’s FIBA Olympic Qualifying Tournament in Madrid, Argentina rolled to a 95-63 win over Chile on Saturday.
Carolina Sanchez had 14 points, five rebounds and five assists for Argentina, who will be in Group B next month with the Czech Republic and Angola.
The American-born Sthefany Thomas, a player at Clemson University, had a game-high 22 points for Eduardo Pinto’s team.
Sanchez and Thomas will be pivotal for Argentina this summer.
The former is a veteran power forward/center who missed last year’s FIBA Americas Championship in Chile because of an insurance-related issue.
Thomas, who just turned 19, competed at the FIBA U19 World Championship in Slovakia last year with Argentina and finished tied for the second-best scoring average in the tournament at 19.4 points.
Argentina also won their game on Sunday against hosts Ecuador, 98-46.
In Brazil’s first game, the defending champions thrashed Ecuador 90-48 while the following day, they mauled Colombia 100-47.
In the victory over the Colombians, veteran center Ega had 18 points and seven rebounds while Karla scored 17.
Neither Argentina, nor Brazil are playing with all of their first-team players in Guayaquil.
Brazil are in Group C of the Olympic qualifying event with Spain and Fiji.
Meanwhile, Venezuela had a great start to the South American Championship as well with a 70-62 win over Colombia and a 101-92 triumph over Chile.
FIBA
