Syla Swords of Long Island Lutheran named to Canada's Olympic women's basketball team

Less than three months ago, Syla Swords was playing in a tournament for Long Island Lutheran to decide the high school girls basketball national champion. Her next tournament will have a little more exposure on the grandest stage in sports.

Swords, 18, was one of 12 players named to Canada women's national basketball team for the 2024 Olympics in Paris on Tuesday morning. Swords is the youngest basketball player to ever play for Canada in the Olympics.

Minnesota Lynx forward Bridget Carleton said, “She has such a high maturity about her, how she plays and how she acts as a person and a teammate so I know she’s going to continue to get better.”

Swords, a 6-foot guard from Ontario who spent her last two high school seasons at Long Island Lutheran, is a two-time Newsday All-Long Island selection. She averaged 17.6 points, 7.5 rebounds and 5.1 assists per game as a senior for a Lutheran team that played one of the toughest schedules in the country and finished with a 21-2 record. She was a McDonald’s All-American and will play at Michigan for coach Kim Barnes Arico, who grew up on Long Island.

Swords is one of four Canadians making their Olympic debut in Paris. Canada’s final Olympic roster also includes four current WNBA players in Carleton, Kia Nurse, Aaliyah Edwards and Laeticia Amihere. Three other players on the roster played in the WNBA as well. 

Carleton said she forgets "all the time" that Swords is only 18 and added, "She's going to help us at Paris a lot."

Swords played for the Canadian national team during its qualifying games, but there was no guarantee she'd make the final roster. Swords was the youngest player on the roster for those qualifying games and it will remain that way for the Olympics. Swords has been playing exhibition games with the Canadian national team in recent weeks, most recently scoring 11 points in a 91-65 victory over Portugal on Wednesday.

Swords missed a few Lutheran games when she was playing for Canada in the qualifying games in February. When she returned, Swords played a key role in Lutheran defeating back-to-back top-five opponents later in the month.

Swords didn't know if her performance in the qualifying games would be enough to earn one of the 12 coveted roster spots, but she was hopeful and it paid off.

“It just speaks volumes to who she is as a player, as a teammate," Carleton said. "She is so good at adjusting, she learns on the fly. Her basketball IQ is off the chart already as an 18-year-old. She’s a really good shooter, a lockdown defender and she just does whatever the team needs and that’s why she’s going to be really important to our team.”

Swords' father, Shaun, also played Olympic basketball for Canada at the Sydney Games in 2000.

This is the fourth straight Olympic games for Canada's women’s basketball team. Canada finished ninth in 2020 and hasn’t finished better than seventh (1984).

Canada’s first game will be against France on July 29. The rest of Group B includes Australia and Nigeria.