Canyon Barry finally has basketball bragging rights in his family: Olympian

PARIS — By any reasonable measure, Canyon Barry’s basketball career has been wildly successful.

The youngest son of NBA Hall of Famer Rick Barry averaged a conference-best 19.7 points per game as a redshirt junior at College of Charleston. He was named SEC sixth man of the year the following year after transferring to Florida. He even spent five years playing professionally in the G-League and overseas.

And yet, crazy as it sounds, Canyon, 30, might be the least accomplished basketball player in the Barry family.

He wasn't named one of the 50 greatest basketball players in history like his dad. He didn't play 10-plus seasons in the NBA like older brothers Jon and Brent. He didn't help lead Kansas to an NCAA championship like Scooter, nor is he still the all-time assists leader at an ACC program like Drew. Even his mother Lynn has her jersey hanging in the rafters at William & Mary after establishing 11 school records during her career.

“It’s really hard in basketball to do something that the Barry family hasn’t already accomplished,” Canyon said earlier this year. “They have NCAA championships, NBA championships, all-star games. I mean, my brother won the dunk contest. We’ve crossed out a lot on that list.”

At long last, Canyon finally has family basketball bragging rights in at least one aspect: He’s the only Barry ever to play in an Olympics. Canyon is one of four members of a U.S. men's 3x3 team that arrived in Paris projected to contend for a gold medal but so far has underwhelmed.

On Friday night, with the United States desperately needing a couple of wins to have a chance at advancing out of pool play — and playing without an injured Jimmer Fredette — Barry took over. He scored 16 of the U.S.'s 21 points in a win over France, then followed that up by dropping 14 more in a 21-17 victory over China.

There is now hope to move out of pool play for the Americans, who before Friday were 0-4 and staring at an ignominious departure before Barry went wild.

The most remarkable aspect of Canyon’s 3x3 success is that basketball is just a side gig for him. His 9-to-5, after all, is working as a system engineer for L3 Harris Technologies, a defense and space contractor.

Canyon earned an undergraduate degree from the College of Charleston in physics and a master's degree in nuclear engineering from Florida. In 2019, at age 25, Canyon co-published a paper entitled "Mechanical Characterization of Reduced Graphene Oxide Using AFM."

At the same time as that paper came out, Canyon was a part-time starter averaging 10.1 points per game for the G-League’s Iowa Wolves. He first dabbled in 3x3 when he was among a group of G-League players that USA Basketball invited to Las Vegas to participate in the 3x3 national championships.

Canyon became a fixture on the U.S. men’s 3x3 roster after he teamed with former Purdue star Robbie Hummel, former Brown guard Damon Huffman and current U.S. teammate Kareem Maddox to win the 2019 FIBA World Cup. He would have joined that group at the FIBA 3x3 Olympic qualifying tournament two years later, but he was unable to play after suffering an ill-timed back injury.

To vie for the Olympics again this cycle, Canyon had to juggle his full-time job with an intense qualifying schedule that included tournaments everywhere from Abu Dhabi, to the Philippines, to Switzerland, to Mongolia. It all became worth it last year when the U.S. qualified for Paris by virtue of its No. 2 world ranking.

L3 Harris congratulated him with a glowing LinkedIn post.

“Talk about brains and brawn!” it read.

Throughout his basketball career, Canyon has drawn attention for shooting underhand free throws just like his dad and his brothers did. In his final college season, he set a Florida record record with 42 straight made free throws. Then he shot 84.8% from the foul line in four seasons in the G-League.

No reason to change with those shooting percentages.

You don’t need a master’s degree in nuclear engineering to see that.