Windermere basketball’s Chalier Torres to represent Puerto Rico at 2024 FIBA U18 AmeriCup

The Embry-Riddle signee was key to the gold medal-winning Puerto Rico U17 team at the 2023 FIBA Centrobasket — averaging 11.8 points and 3.8 rebounds a game.

By Sam Albuquerque
| 9:00 a.m. June 3, 2024

Sports
High Schools

After a successful senior season, recent Windermere High graduate and boys basketball player Chalier Torres has once again been selected to represent his home country of Puerto Rico on its youth national basketball team as part of the team competing in the 2024 FIBA U18 AmeriCup in Argentina.

Torres, an Embry-Riddle signee, was a key member of the Puerto Rico U17 team that won gold in the 2023 FIBA Centrobasket tournament — averaging 11.8 points per game, 3.8 rebounds and 2.8 assists in five games, including 23 points in the championship against the Dominican Republic.

As a 6-foot-5 combo guard, the former Wolverine hooper brings size, handle and a shot that’s as smooth as they come to the hardwood. In his senior season, Torres averaged 15.1 points, 8.2 rebounds and five assists — all of which are increases from his junior-year numbers.

The 13th edition of the AmeriCup — FIBA’s most important youth regional tournament in North, Central and South America, as well as the Caribbean, which aims to highlight the next generation of basketball stars — is an eight-team, bi-annual tournament that qualifies the top four teams to the 2025 FIBA U19 World Cup.

For an idea of just how big this tournament is, just take a look at the championship roster of the USA at the last edition of the AmeriCup in 2022; basketball fans will notice a lot of familiar names like NBA players Cam Whitmore, GG Jackson II and Orlando Magic guard Anthony Black. The Americans also rolled out stars of this past season’s college game including national champion with UConn, Stephon Castle, Duke’s second-leading scorer Jared McCain and Indiana big man Kel’el Ware.

The eight teams that qualified for AmeriCup were: Canada and the United States from North America; Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic and Belize from Central America and the Caribbean; and Argentina, Venezuela and Brazil from South America.

Two groups of four divide the eight teams with Torres and Puerto Rico in Group A with Venezuela, Canada and the Dominican Republic. Each team in the groups will play each other in the group phase with the top two from each group moving on to the quarterfinals in the knockout phase of the tournament.

All matchups will be played in the Estadio Obras Sanitarias in Buenas Aires, Argentina, with all four of the first group phase games scheduled to begin on Monday, June 3, and the finals slated for Sunday, June 9. Torres and Puerto Rico kick off the tournament against Venezuela at 1:40 p.m.

Regardless of the results of the group phase or knockout phase games, each team will play six games over the seven-day tournament to determine the finishing places for each team, 1-8.

All AmeriCup games will be streamed on FIBA’s YouTube channel, which you can find at this link: youtube.com/fiba.

For more information on the event visit: fiba.basketball/americas/u18/2024/event-guide

author

Sam Albuquerque

A native of João Pessoa, Brazil, Sam Albuquerque moved in 1997 to Central Florida as a kid. After earning a communications degree in 2016 from the University of Central Florida, he started his career covering sports as a producer for a local radio station, ESPN 580 Orlando. He went on to earn a master’s degree in editorial journalism from Northwestern University, before moving to South Carolina to cover local sports for the USA Today Network’s Spartanburg Herald-Journal. When he’s not working, you can find him spending time with his lovely wife, Sarah, newborn son, Noah, and dog named Skulí.