Locker
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Post by Locker on Jul 26, 2007 20:32:03 GMT -5
You know who really could have helped Team USA tonight? Jon Wallace.
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prhoya
Blue & Gray (over 10,000 posts)
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Post by prhoya on Jul 26, 2007 20:37:15 GMT -5
Locker, that's not the ridicule I'm referring to with what I wrote. USA Basketball will feel it for not winning these tournaments that it used to dominate. No one needs to tell them. A record of 0-3 will do it for you. It used to be that teams knew and accepted that they were playing for silver. That is what I think will force a change.
0-3??? That's incredible.
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prhoya
Blue & Gray (over 10,000 posts)
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Post by prhoya on Jul 26, 2007 20:38:59 GMT -5
How about sending a selection of NBDL's top players?
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MCIGuy
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Post by MCIGuy on Jul 26, 2007 20:43:02 GMT -5
In fairness to Jay Wright he did not pick this team.
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Locker
Golden Hoya (over 1000 posts)
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Post by Locker on Jul 26, 2007 20:44:29 GMT -5
Locker, that's not the ridicule I'm referring to with what I wrote. USA Basketball will feel it for not winning these tournaments that it used to dominate. No one needs to tell them. A record of 0-3 will do it for you. It used to be that teams knew and accepted that they were playing for silver. That is what I think will force a change. 0-3??? That's incredible. If we do go 0-3, I think that will be a bigger surprise to us than to USA basketball. Of the folks who have commented on our chances -- only Fran Fraschilla and Hoops Weiss, as far as I can tell -- no one thought we would advance to the medal round. And Wright's pre-tourney quotes didn't exude a lot of confidence, either. We need Urugay to beat Argentina tonight, or we're eliminated.
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balla
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Post by balla on Jul 26, 2007 20:50:13 GMT -5
Wright coached this team, and his "star" guard was like 1-16 from the field in 2 games. A disciplined coach would have benched him.
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prhoya
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Post by prhoya on Jul 26, 2007 21:02:43 GMT -5
Locker, that's not the ridicule I'm referring to with what I wrote. USA Basketball will feel it for not winning these tournaments that it used to dominate. No one needs to tell them. A record of 0-3 will do it for you. It used to be that teams knew and accepted that they were playing for silver. That is what I think will force a change. 0-3??? That's incredible. If we do go 0-3, I think that will be a bigger surprise to us than to USA basketball. Of the folks who have commented on our chances -- only Fran Fraschilla and Hoops Weiss, as far as I can tell -- no one thought we would advance to the medal round. And Wright's pre-tourney quotes didn't exude a lot of confidence, either. We need Urugay to beat Argentina tonight, or we're eliminated. You mean to tell me that USA Basketball was going, "oh we'll get creamed in the PanAms, but it's O.K., no big surprise"? No, I think USA Basketball thought it would get through the first round because other historically strong teams were not sending their top players.
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prhoya
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Post by prhoya on Jul 26, 2007 21:03:11 GMT -5
Wright coached this team, and his "star" guard was like 1-16 from the field in 2 games. A disciplined coach would have benched him. You're wright.
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sleepy
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Post by sleepy on Jul 26, 2007 22:33:50 GMT -5
Did anyone else notice how slim Roy looked out there? The only way i could tell it was him was by his arm band. He also looked very comfortable in the wider paint they have in international play. If the US team just kept going down low to Roy and White like they were doing in the beginning, it would have been a pretty easy win. Instead, they chuck up quick shots without passing the ball once! I feel bad for Roy, he can't control what the guards do.
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mapei
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Post by mapei on Jul 26, 2007 22:42:17 GMT -5
Going back to the first game for a moment, can anyone comment on why Roy only got two rebounds? That seems really low, even for 14 minutes of play, from your biggest player. I wasn't able to watch either game, though obviously his stat line was much better in the second.
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prhoya
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Post by prhoya on Jul 26, 2007 23:34:47 GMT -5
I believe the US cannot make the semis. Argentina has two wins, Uruguay and Panama are 1-1, and the US is 0-2. Even if US wins, the winner of the Uru-Pan game will qualify as the seond team from Group B. Sad!
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RDF
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Post by RDF on Jul 26, 2007 23:37:16 GMT -5
What is interesting in this type of competition is that you see the weak points in players you normally gush about--Drew Neitzel is a nice player--but he gets far too much praise for being a "great player" because he played on a bad Michigan State team and was their best scorer--well being the best scorer on a mediocre team doesn't make you a great player.
Scottie Reynolds is overrated and I've maintained this from Day One. He's a good shooter--and not a great player. He can't do anything to change a game if he's not hitting his deep 3's--he's too slow to get to the rim against elite athletes and if you crowd him and make him put it on the floor--he's DONE. All GU did to limit Reynolds was crowd him--make him dribble and watch him play out of control, lose the ball, or hoist silly shots.
It's not bashing a player if you speak honestly. I think some think I fall in "love" with players--I don't--if Chris Wright plays like garbage, I'll be first to criticize his play--but he's a guy who can do some things to help a team when he's not scoring--and he's much quicker and has better idea of how to lead a team. Those who are evaluating our FR are forgetting--you won't see them in same environment--you will see them blended in with Hibbert, Summers, Ewing, etc......and that will open some things up for their game to flourish.
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MCIGuy
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Post by MCIGuy on Jul 27, 2007 0:32:14 GMT -5
Going back to the first game for a moment, can anyone comment on why Roy only got two rebounds? That seems really low, even for 14 minutes of play, from your biggest player. I wasn't able to watch either game, though obviously his stat line was much better in the second. I don't think anyone saw the first game so its hard to say. Could be typical Roy being slow in his reflexes and waiting for the ball to fall in his hands rather than snaring it. Or the C he was guarding had him on the perimeter which meant Roy was away from the hoop often when the shot went up. Or perhaps the fouls he picked up made him cautious/timid about going after the rebounds. Can't say. Terp fans think the only player who played well in Game 2 was Gist (Hibbert and everyone else sucked). But Gist, though playing twenty minutes, only had one single rebound. So by the Terp fandom definition the greater you play the less rebounds you have. Which would mean Roy played an awesome Game 1. Roy looks to be in the best shape of his life. He didn't play a great game (there were a few plays he could have helped his team's chances if only he had been more effective in those sequences) but he played pretty well. He's relying too much on the hook shot rather than his dropstep moves though.
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Bay99
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Post by Bay99 on Jul 27, 2007 1:01:32 GMT -5
In fairness to Jay Wright he did not pick this team. For sake of discussion, who would you have picked? It's an interesting topic -- until I started following this team because of Roy, I had no idea that it was selected by a committee (that Boeheim is on, fyi) that did not include the coach. Which makes very little sense to me. But anyway, I thought from the original list of invites, there were some very interesting choices. My understanding was that they were going with what they thought was the team best-suited to compete in international play against older/professional players. I scratched my head when Reynolds made the team. It was a guard-heavy invite list, and it just seemed like this was a "favor" pick because Wright was the coach. I love his game, I don't look forward to playing him during the Big East season, but it just seemed like a real reach to say he was a better fit for this team than someone like Chalmers or Lofton.
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DrumsGoBang
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Post by DrumsGoBang on Jul 27, 2007 8:20:02 GMT -5
USA! USA! USA! USA!
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EasyEd
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Post by EasyEd on Jul 27, 2007 8:24:44 GMT -5
I happen to like the current way of using college players rather than some pros. It's not all about winning. Take Roy, for instance. He has gotten to represent his country in international competition and wear the USA on his uniform. He has been exposed to different coaching. He has had the opportunity to play alongside new teammates. He's gotten to play against different types of competition and different coaching schemes. What an experience for a 20 year old.
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GIGAFAN99
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Post by GIGAFAN99 on Jul 27, 2007 8:28:50 GMT -5
I happen to like the current way of using college players rather than some pros. It's not all about winning. Take Roy, for instance. He has gotten to represent his country in international competition and wear the USA on his uniform. He has been exposed to different coaching. He has had the opportunity to play alongside new teammates. He's gotten to play against different types of competition and different coaching schemes. What an experience for a 20 year old. Agreed ed. The obsession with winning so we can win 40 more Pan Am medals than everyone else rather than 39 is kind of ridiculous compared to honoring the work ethic of these young players by giving them a chance to compete.
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DrumsGoBang
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Post by DrumsGoBang on Jul 27, 2007 8:36:44 GMT -5
and he get to a chance to dance the mambo with sexy Rio ladies.
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Post by 37thstreet on Jul 27, 2007 9:17:42 GMT -5
Interesting that Roy and Pinnock played in this past game. They were teammates on a Kenner Clydes team a couple summers ago and were pretty dominant. A nice two-man game with Pinnock's athleticism and feeding Roy in the post and Roys passing ability it was fun to watch.
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theexorcist
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Post by theexorcist on Jul 27, 2007 9:49:21 GMT -5
I happen to like the current way of using college players rather than some pros. It's not all about winning. Take Roy, for instance. He has gotten to represent his country in international competition and wear the USA on his uniform. He has been exposed to different coaching. He has had the opportunity to play alongside new teammates. He's gotten to play against different types of competition and different coaching schemes. What an experience for a 20 year old. Sorry, but you hit a massive nerve. Rant coming. And this isn't meant to denigrate Roy or anyone on the team. But Giga, I don't buy your argument. There also exists the U-19 world championships and the World University Games for those who are a few years older. This is embarrassing. I can see USA Basketball using this to prep younger players, but it doesn't work if we go 0-3, losing to *COLORFUL WORDS DELETED* Panama and Uruguay. Really, Panama and Uruguay? The United States, with 300 million people, can't put out a basketball team that would thump those two without blinking? And USA Basketball crapped out at the Worlds, too, losing in the semifinals. I'd be cooler with this loss if we were using it like US Soccer used the Copa America to look at young players - but we have way too many good players already. USA Basketball continues to consider the national team in the mode of the Dream Team - a kinda-sorta all star team that practices for a few weeks under a coach who gets the job based on some rotational idea. The players then are videotaped (PICK ONE:) eating a fun foreign food/learning to dance a national dance/buying souvenirs/visiting famous landmarks so that Ahmad Rashad can fawn over them with a puff piece on Inside Stuff. Jay Wright isn't the best coach in the country. He's not even the best college coach in the country. He isn't even the best coach in his CONFERENCE (and given Fran Dunphy, I'm not sure he's the best coach in his city). And, yet, with this "mind-opening experience plus a tournament" attitude, it doesn't matter. We can lose, but no one's going to care and neither Wright (nor anyone else) is going to have this as a resume blot. And why do D-I college players deserve this? Why don't we give Division II or III players, who have never experienced a massive tournament and who will never get another shot? Why not high schoolers? Might it not be better to give many of these students a perspective before college? They can go 0-3 just as well as this team did. If we can't recruit enough NBA players, go to the guys trying to make the jump to the League and guarantee legit money for a two-year contract (meaning players are either prepping for the Summer Olympics or the World Championships). They can develop as a team (rather than needing to learn another new system a month before their first game) and they stay on the NBA's radar. I think that you could create a legitimate marketing opportunity playing against college teams and playing various pro teams abroad. The last time a US team won first in a senior world competition was the 2000 Olympics. Both times, we lost in the semifinals. USA Basketball, which has the responsibility for selecting the team and the coaching staff, and who has the slight advantage of having the world's preeminent pro league BASED HERE, keeps on tanking. And I don't buy the "basketball is more competitive now" BS. Soccer is more fraught with chance and has a much narrower distribution between the top and the bottom, and yet until the last tournament, Brazil had made three straight finals and won two. Does anyone else care that the United States lost to PANAMA? Anybody?
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