By NBA.com Staff
ORLANDO — The global champions will be crowned at the Jr. NBA Global Championship in Orlando on Sunday after months of competitions that included more than 15,000 13- and 14-year-old kids from 75 countries.
Africa returns to the boys global championship for the second straight year. They defeated Canada 80-46 on Saturday to win the International bracket, which featured eight teams from across the world.
Team Africa will face the U.S. West squad, who powered past U.S. Southeast in the fourth quarter during the U.S. Boys championship to win 80-74.
In the girls bracket, the defending-champion U.S. Central squad returns to the global championship game after a 73-57 win over the U.S. West team during the U.S. Girls championship on Saturday. They will face Canada, who defeated Latin America 70-54 to win the International championship.
The sixteen teams who arrived in Orlando last week earned their spots by winning their respective Jr. NBA Global Championship Regional tournament. The teams began the action in Orlando with three, round-robin style pool games to determine seeding for the single-elimination championship tournaments. The winners of those four tournaments advanced to the final global championship games on Sunday.
The Championship Sunday coverage will begin at 2:30 ET on FOX with a pre-game show featuring Vince Carter and Charissa Thompson with special guests NBA commissioner Adam Silver and Dwyane Wade, who has served as a Jr. NBA Global Championship Ambassador throughout the time in Orlando.
The inaugural Jr. NBA Global Championship games were held in 2018 and won by the Central girls (Kansas City, Mo.) and the Central boys (Overland Park, Kan.). In addition to the Jr. NBA Global Championship events, the youth in Orlando also participate in off-court life skills programming.
