Canada Basketball | FIBA U21 Championships
TORONTO, Ontario ? University of Vermont’s Courtnay Pilypaitis (Orleans, Ontario) has been named to the Canadian U21 Women’s Basketball National Team. Canada Basketball made the announcement today.
Team Canada will compete at the FIBA U21 World Championships for Women from June 28 to July 8 in Moscow, Russia. Prior to leaving for Russia the team will be training at Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Ontario.
As a freshman at Vermont, Pilypaitis was the unanimous pick for the America East Rookie of the Year honor. She was also named to the all-rookie and all-conference second team in the league.
During the 2006-07 season, Pilypaitis won the America East Rookie of the Week honor seven times, including five straight weeks, to set a new school record for earning the conference’s weekly honor. She finished her rookie campaign leading the team in scoring (13.7 ppg) and ranked second on the team in rebounds (5.3 pg) and assists (126). She is the first freshmen to lead Vermont in scoring since Joann McKay achieved the feat in 1984-85.
Pilypaitis finished the year with the fourth best scoring average among freshmen in the history of the Vermont program. She was one of four rookies in the country at the Division I level to lead their team in scoring and only 10 Division I teams in the nation started a freshmen at the point in their first game of the year, including UVM’s Pilypaitis.
She led #3 Vermont to a victory over #6 Maine in the America East Quarterfinals, scoring a game-high 23 points (8-for-13 FG), grabbing seven rebounds, handing out four assists and collecting seven. She finished the tournament averaging 21.0 points, 7.0 rebounds, 3.5 assists and 4.0 steals, while shooting 46.7 percent from the field and 41.7 percent from three point range.
Vermont posted a record of 19-12, the most wins and four years, and finished third in the America East regular season standings after being picked to finish eighth in the preseason coaches’ poll.