Canada fails to qualify for 2016 Olympics, lose to Venezuela 79-78 at FIBA Americas

Canada's Olympic dreams have been put on hold.

With a trip to the basketball tournament at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro on the line, the Canadian senior men's national team lost to Venezuela 79-78 in the semifinals of the FIBA Americas Championship on Friday night in Mexico City.

Kelly Olynyk's monster effort gave Canada a chance to win as the Boston Celtics forward scored a game-high 34 points and grabbed 13 rebounds, but overall it was easily the team's worst performance of the tournament. The only other Canadian to finish with double-digits scoring was sharpshooter Brady Heslip with 10 points.

After two first quarter fouls forced Cory Joseph to the bench early, the offence struggled to get going without their starting point guard for large portions of the game, and Venezuela led 20-19 after one. Those struggles for Canada carried into the second quarter. Venezuela took advantage of a few sloppy turnovers and was up 38-37 at halftime.

Canada took a 60-58 lead into the fourth and stretched that advantage to seven points, but Venezuela kept on pressing and came back to tie the game at 78-78 with just over 24 seconds to play.

Venezuela had the ball and decided to wind the clock down and try to win the game with their final shot. Heissler Guillent missed a contested look and it appeared the game was headed to overtime, but a controversial foul call on Canada's Aaron Doornekamp gave Venezuela two free throws with 0.03 seconds left on the clock.

Gregory Vargas stepped to the line for Venezuela, hit the first free throw to take the lead, and missed the second attempt on purpose to let time expire and seal the stunning upset.

Canada entered the semifinal having won seven straight at the FIBA Americas, most of them comfortably, including a 82-62 blowout win over Venezuela. They didn't not look comfortable at all Friday night, and it cost them. Canada will play the loser of the semifinal between Argentina and Mexico in the bronze medal game Saturday.

But this tournament was always about qualifying for the Olympics, and for now they have failed to do so. Canada will have another opportunity to get in through a world qualifying tournament next July, where the final three spots for Rio remain up for grabs. 18 teams are split up into three mini-tournaments consisting of six teams. The winner of each of the three mini-tournaments qualifies for the Games.

It was supposed to be dealt with tonight though, and the sting of this loss will undoubtedly stay with the Canadians for some time. Their goal was right there in front of them, and they came up completely flat.

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Israel Fehr is a writer for Yahoo Canada Sports. Email him at israelfehr@yahoo.ca or follow him on Twitter. Follow @israelfehr