The 21-year-old Econ major is hoping to crack the SMNT
Brandon Louie has his sights set on a big 2026 season on the court.
At the club level, the 21-year-old University of Arizona student is aiming to help the Wildcats—hosts of the Intercollegiate Wheelchair Basketball National Championships—capture back-to-back titles in March.
On the international stage, Louie is aiming to take the next step by earning a spot on the Senior Men’s National Team for the 2026 IWBF Wheelchair Basketball World Championships in Ottawa this September.
“Ideally, I’d like to make that World’s team because I think that’s the first big step in potentially making Paralympics by 2028,” said Louie from his dorm in Tucson, Arizona. “If I don’t, that’s honestly not too much of a deterrent for me. I know I’m still very new to the whole Team Canada system.”
After capturing a National Championship with Arizona, Louie made his Team Canada debut at the 2025 IWBF Men’s U23 Americas Championship in Bogotá, Colombia. He averaged seven points and four rebounds, helping Canada secure qualification for the U23 World Championship.
In June, at the World Championship in São Paulo, Brazil, Louie averaged 9.7 points, 3.5 assists, and 3.3 rebounds as Canada finished ninth overall.
Louie earned his third opportunity to don the red and white at the 2025 Youth Parapan American Games, averaging 14.3 points, 7.7 rebounds and 5.1 assists per game as Canada captured gold.
Reflecting on his journey, Louie credits his success with Arizona as a key factor in his smooth transition to the international game with Team Canada.
“I think it helped me a lot,” he said. “The win with Arizona and the increase in my role over the last season helped me feel more confident in taking a leadership role, and it helped me integrate more smoothly to the U23 squad.
“Coming off a significant win, helped me feel comfortable amongst them and working with those guys.”
Born in Los Altos, Calif., Louie was introduced to wheelchair basketball in 2021 following an accident during a family vacation in Hawaii.
“I was surfing in Hawaii, and as I stood up on my surfboard, I felt like a pop in my lower back,” Louie explained. “I later learned that the pop caused swelling around my spinal cord, and it wouldn’t allow blood to perfuse into my spine. It created a stroke-like symptom, and I lost all sensation and movement from my T11 vertebrae down. I’ve been a complete T11 since.”
Growing up in the Bay Area, Louie was an avid soccer player, dabbled in basketball, and competed in both cross country and track.
While rehabilitating from his spinal cord injury at the Shepherd Center in Atlanta, Georgia, Louie was first introduced to parasport after watching replays of the Tokyo Paralympics on television.
“I saw the wheelchair basketball players practicing in the gym there at the center, and that set me on my path to give it a shot,” he said.
During a junior wheelchair basketball tournament near his home in California, Louie caught the attention of University of Arizona head coach Mike Beardsley, opening the door to a move to Tucson to continue his wheelchair basketball journey.
“He just sent out a little feeler then and kept in contact over the next year while I was making college decisions,” Louie recalled. “I felt like Mike had a clear view of what the role that he wanted me to take on, and a realistic view of the financial picture, for scholarships.”
With his mother hailing from Don Mills, a community northeast of Toronto, Louie obtained Canadian citizenship.
As a freshman at Arizona, Louie was encouraged by Senior Men’s National Team member and fellow Wildcat Blaise Mutware to connect with the high-performance team at Wheelchair Basketball Canada to explore opportunities within Canada’s NextGen program.
“I’d always hear him talking about Team Canada,” Louie said. “At the same time, I was talking to my mom about getting my Canadian citizenship forms filled out and finished. Once that was done, she was like, ‘Why don’t you just reach out to the coaches, see if they’re interested?’
“Blaise encouraged me to give it a shot and put me in contact with the coaches.”
Off the court, Louie is a third-year Economics major at Arizona and aspires to attend graduate school to become a lawyer.
He also hopes to continue developing his game overseas, with ambitions of playing wheelchair basketball in Europe.
Big picture, Louie’s goal is to represent Canada in wheelchair basketball at the LA 2028 Paralympic Games.
“I think it would be pretty cool because it’s in the state that I was born in, and I’d probably get a chance to play against a lot of the guys who I’ve already been playing against these last few years,” he said.
“I think it would be a nice full circle moment, coming back to California but playing under Canada’s flag, which I’m more than happy to do, which I’m sure my mom is also really happy about.”