PARIS — By any reasonable measure, Canyon Barry’s basketball career has been a huge success.
The youngest son of NBA Hall of Famer Rick Barry averaged a conference-best 19.7 points per game as a redshirt junior at the College of Charleston. He was named the 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 abroad.
And yet, as crazy as it sounds, Canyon, 30, might be the least talented basketball player in the Barry family.
He wasn’t named one of the 50 greatest basketball players in history like his father. He didn’t play more than 10 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 leader in assists for an ACC program like Drew. Even your mother Lynn Got your shirt hanging from the rafters at William & Mary after setting 11 school records during his career.
“It’s very difficult 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 crossed a lot of things off that list.”
Finally, Canyon finally has family basketball bragging rights in at least one respect: He’s the only Barry to play in the Olympics. Canyon is one of four members of a U.S. men’s 3×3 team that arrived in Paris projected to compete for the gold medal, but has so far been unimpressed.
On Friday night, with the United States desperately needing a few wins to have a chance of getting out of group play – and playing without the injured Jimmer Fredette – Barry took over. He scored 16 of the U.S.’s 21 points in the win over France, then dropped 14 more in a 21-17 win over China.
Now there is hope of getting out of pool play for the Americans, who before Friday were 0-4 and facing an ignominious exit before Barry went crazy.
The most notable aspect of Canyon’s success in 3×3 is that basketball is just a side gig for him. After all, his 9-to-5 is working as a systems engineer for L3 Harris Technologies, a defense and space contractor.
Canyon earned a bachelor’s degree in physics from the College of Charleston and a master’s degree in nuclear engineering from Florida. In 2019, at age 25, Canyon co-published an article titled “Mechanical Characterization of Reduced Graphene Oxide Using AFM”.
At the same time the article was published, Canyon was a part-time starter averaging 10.1 points per game for the Iowa Wolves of the G-League. He first became involved in 3×3 when he was among a group of G-League players that USA Basketball invited to Las Vegas to participate in the 3×3 national championships.
Canyon has become a fixture on the U.S. men’s 3×3 roster after teaming 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 in the FIBA 3×3 Olympic Qualifying Tournament two years later, but was unable to play after suffering an ill-timed back injury.
To compete in 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 paid off last year when the US qualified for Paris by virtue of its second place in the world rankings.
L3 Harris congratulated him with a brilliant post on LinkedIn.
“Talk about brains and brawn!” he read.
Throughout his basketball career, Canyon drew attention for shooting underhand free throws, just as his father and brothers did. In his final college season, he set a Florida record with 42 consecutive free throws. He then shot 84.8% from the foul line in four seasons in the G-League.
There is no reason to change these shooting percentages.
You don’t need a master’s degree in nuclear engineering to see this.
