Canada’s women beat the United States 21-12 on Sunday night in San Salvador to win the FIBA 3×3 AmeriCup, reclaiming the continental title from the defending champions. The Canada FIBA 3×3 AmeriCup title is the program’s third, and it arrived a year after the same final ended in a 21-19 American win in Leon, Mexico.
FINAL: Canada 21, United States 12
How to watch: Canada vs United States, Sunday, November 1, 2026, at Plaza Merliot in San Salvador, El Salvador
TV (Canada): CBC Sports
Stream: FIBA 3×3 YouTube, CBC Sports digital
The final was the matchup the whole tournament had pointed toward. Both teams arrived at Plaza Merliot unbeaten, Canada as the top seed in the women’s power rankings and the United States as the holders, chasing a fourth gold medal with an entirely new roster. Canada Basketball posted the final score graphic on its official Instagram account minutes after the buzzer, a 21 next to the Canadian flag and a 12 next to the American one, with the word FINAL between them: Canada Basketball’s post. The federation followed it with a gold medal graphic naming the four champions: Michelle Plouffe, Cassandra Brown, Katherine Plouffe and Paige Crozon.
FIBA’s official channels carried the closing moments live, and the full final is on the FIBA 3×3 YouTube channel:
Canada FIBA 3×3 AmeriCup Title Closes The Redemption Run
FIBA framed this tournament for Canada in one word before it started: redemption. The Canadians had fallen to the United States in last year’s final, and FIBA’s preview noted they had “unfinished business in San Salvador.” The history made the stakes plain. Across their AmeriCup history before this week, Canada had won two golds, two bronzes and one silver, and had never finished outside the top three. The golds came in 2022 and 2024, the silver in 2025, when Allisha Gray’s late free throws sealed a 21-19 American win after Crozon had tied the game at 19.
Sunday’s final never reached that kind of tension. In 3×3, games run to 21 points or ten minutes, and Canada controlled the scoreboard on the way to the target number. With the score at 20-12, Michelle Plouffe drove past her defender and scored the basket that ended the game, and the four Canadians came together at centre court as the crowd reacted. FIBA’s broadcast noted the pattern out loud as the team celebrated: champions in 2022, champions in 2024, and champions again in 2026, a gold medal in every even year of the decade so far, with the one that got away in 2025 now answered.
The margin matters, too. Last year’s final was decided by two points and two free throws. This one was decided by nine, the widest gap between these teams in an AmeriCup final, against an American program that had won the tournament three times and arrived in El Salvador holding both the men’s and women’s crowns from 2025.
An Unbeaten Week In San Salvador
Canada’s run through the October 28 to November 1 tournament was clean from the first day of the main draw. In Pool A, Cassandra Brown opened with nine points and six rebounds in a 21-6 win over host El Salvador, and Paige Crozon scored seven in a 21-7 win over Venezuela that completed a perfect pool campaign. The knockout rounds all landed on Sunday, November 1: Canada beat Chile 18-10 in the quarter-finals, then beat Colombia 21-11 in the semi-finals, with FIBA’s channels calling Crozon’s closing play with the line “Paige calls GAME!” as Canada booked its place in the final.
The United States took the other road in. The Americans swept Pool B, beating Colombia 21-7 behind 12 points and four two-pointers from Sydney Taylor, and the Cayman Islands 21-4, then worked through the knockout bracket past Paraguay and Cuba to reach the final without a loss. Colombia went on to beat Cuba for the bronze medal, completing the podium behind Canada and the United States.
The venue carried its own first. Plaza Merliot in San Salvador hosted the tournament as El Salvador staged the AmeriCup for the first time, the first Central American host in the competition’s history, with the country already confirmed to host again in 2027. A Canadian title won on a court set inside a San Salvador shopping plaza, in front of crowds watching from the balconies above, is a scene this young discipline keeps producing, and Canada keeps finishing on top of it.
The Core That Keeps Winning
Continuity is the story underneath the score. Paige Crozon came into this tournament as the AmeriCup’s all-time leading scorer in women’s history, with 153 points, having played every edition of the event, four FIBA 3×3 World Cups and the Paris 2024 Olympic Games. Katherine Plouffe returned alongside her as a holdover from last year’s squad. Michelle Plouffe played her third AmeriCup, and FIBA’s broadcast credited her return as a lead voice in this title run, fitting for the player who scored the final basket. Cassandra Brown, the debutant of the four, announced herself in the opener with the nine point, six rebound game against the hosts and held her place in a rotation with almost no margin for error.
Crozon has described the identity of this Canadian group before, after a group win at the 2024 AmeriCup: “A strength of this team and team Canada Basketball is just how committed we are to our defensive schemes and our defensive game plan. We rely heavily on being able to stop the ball and being disruptive to the other team’s offence.” Holding the defending champions to 12 points in a game played to 21 is that identity in its purest form. The Americans, with Aerial Powers, Sydney Taylor, Flau’jae Johnson and Aziaha James all making their AmeriCup debuts, ran into a team that has played together for years and defended like it.
The title also extends a strong 2026 for the program. Canada won two stops on the FIBA 3×3 Women’s Series this season, in Shanghai and Takasaki, and FIBA ranked them first among the women’s contenders entering San Salvador. The ranking held. Canada leaves El Salvador with a third AmeriCup gold, level with the United States in the competition’s history, an unbeaten week, and the rivalry’s most recent word. The next chapter is already scheduled: the AmeriCup returns to San Salvador in 2027, and for the first time, Canada will arrive as the defending champion the Americans have to chase.
