Spain’s Valencia This summer, in Paris, Santi Aldama, a former top men’s basketball player for Loyola University Maryland, will become the first former Greyhounds student-athlete to compete in the Olympic Games. After his team defeated the Bahamian National Team 86-78 on Sunday, Aldama was voted the TISSOT Most Valuable Player of the Olympic Qualifying Tournament in Spain. This earned his country a spot in the 2024 Olympics. Following Sunday’s victory, Aldama stated on the FIBA website, “In games like this, it’s more about getting the win than anything else.” “(I’m) super proud of the team, we wanted to be here today, we will get a little bit of rest and get right back to it.”
Twelve countries, including Spain, will participate in the Olympic Tournament, which gets underway in Paris on July 27 and ends on August 10 with medal matches. After finishing his third season with the Memphis Grizzlies of the NBA in 2023–24, Aldama won MVP honors in the Valencia tournament. In the four games this week, he averaged 17.0 points, 8.0 rebounds, 1.8 blocks, and 1.5 assists. With an average of plus-11.5 points per game, he led Spain and had the highest efficiency mark (22.0) of any player competing in the competition. Aldama made 58 percent of her field goals, 45 of which came from 3-point range.
When it comes to international competition, the Las Palmas de Gran Canaria native is not unfamiliar. Before his first season at Loyola in 2019, he led Spain to the FIBA U-18 European Championship. He was awarded the tournament’s MVP as well. During her two seasons as a standout player at Loyola (2019–21), Aldama averaged 19.0 points and 9.2 rebounds for the Greyhounds in 27 games. When he averaged 21.2 points and 10.1 rebounds per game in 2020–21, he became the first player in Patriot League history to do it.
Before declaring for the NBA Draft and getting chosen in the first round by the Utah Jazz after being traded to the Memphis Grizzlies on draft day, he was an All-Patriot League First Team selection that season. Over the past three years, Aldama has participated in 170 games for the Grizzlies, starting 55 of them. In 2022–2023 (his second professional season), he averaged 9.0; this year, he raised that to 10.7. He’ll be the second person in his immediate family to compete in the Olympics, but he’ll be the first student-athlete from Loyola to do so. Santiago, his father, competed for Spain in the 1992 Olympics.