TBird41
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"Roy! I Love All 7'2" of you Roy!"
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Post by TBird41 on Jul 27, 2007 9:57:22 GMT -5
Does anyone else care that the United States lost to PANAMA? Anybody? You obviously have never met a Panamanian. They are not to be taken lightly---some would described their abilities as Pirates times Ninjas raised to the Power of Roy. Underestimate them at your own risk.
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SFHoya99
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Post by SFHoya99 on Jul 27, 2007 9:58:09 GMT -5
Exorcist, there's a very simple reason why we lose these games, and it has to do with a team practicing for five days versus a team practicing for years together.
Also, in this case, it's 20 year olds losing to 28 year olds, which you haven't accounted for at all.
Personally, for something like this, I'd send the NCAA National Champion or runner up (depending on if the major players were American or not) to the Pan Am games. Send Florida, pros included, minus Noah. UCLA would lose half their big men, so send us or Ohio State or whomever. At least they'd have played more than five practices together.
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theexorcist
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Post by theexorcist on Jul 27, 2007 10:19:45 GMT -5
SFHoya: Agree completely. I should have been clearer - I did account for the 20 year olds losing to the 28-year olds. It's part of the screed against USA Basketball, which just sends a random kinda-sorta all-star team to the NCAAs (your post about bringing in a team from the NCAA National Champion, possibly augmented with one or two players to replace graduated pros or foreigners, seems like it would never happen but would admittedly be a better team than this one). But part of my point was that there's no reason to bring in 20 year olds instead of 28 year olds. Like I said, bring in some "not quite good enough for the League" pros and use it as prep for the Olympics. USA Basketball straightjackets themselves by using exclusively college players. They further straightjacket themselves by giving the team only a few weeks to practice together. They don't take it seriously, which seems to be endemic no matter which men's team is fielded. This stuff worked when the international community couldn't play. It doesn't work when we're getting our clock cleaned by the 29th and 30th-best teams in the world ( www.fiba.com/pages/eng/fc/even/rank/p/openNodeIDs/943/selNodeID/943/rankMen.html , however much you trust it).
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guru
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Post by guru on Jul 27, 2007 10:25:30 GMT -5
Scottie Reynolds is killing this team. The kid is the very definition of a chucker. I hope Chris Wright is paying attention and taking mental notes on how NOT to run a team.
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prhoya
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Post by prhoya on Jul 27, 2007 10:35:16 GMT -5
Good points, exorcist in your next to last post.
Giga, sounds like sour grapes. So the USA doesn't care about winning, but just with giving kids a chance to travel abroad? Why go through all the trouble of picking a team by committeee? Just take the first 12 players on a first come, first serve basis.
SF, did you read the previous pages? It's not 20 year olds to 28 year olds (geez, this age difference is widening by the minute; soon someone will say that it was high schoolers against 35 yearld-olds). It's more like 21 year olds to 24 year olds. PR's average is 24. Canada's average is 23. Uruguay is the only team that brought the full national team. Panama's leader and high scorer is the GW player. Furthermore, PR's team was selected a week before heading over to Rio. And, NO, they have not been playing together for years. That's just another excuse.
It sounds like when US Soccer beats Mexico. There's always an excuse that "clearly" explains why they lost because they own the right to be eternally better than US Soccer. Sore, whining losers!
Basically, the USA team sucked. It was a combination of the players picked, the coaching, and USA BAsketball's attitude that they can kick butt with college players. The result? We'll see after today's game vs. Argentina.
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mrsixer123
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Post by mrsixer123 on Jul 27, 2007 10:48:36 GMT -5
As I said months ago, Roy would/will not gain anything by playing in the pan am. The international game and officiating does not bode well for american big men
It is so bad, tim duncan proclaimed he would never play in any international games again
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Dhall
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Post by Dhall on Jul 27, 2007 11:09:08 GMT -5
Good points, exorcist in your next to last post. Giga, sounds like sour grapes. So the USA doesn't care about winning, but just with giving kids a chance to travel abroad? Why go through all the trouble of picking a team by committeee? Just take the first 12 players on a first come, first serve basis. SF, did you read the previous pages? It's not 20 year olds to 28 year olds (geez, this age difference is widening by the minute; soon someone will say that it was high schoolers against 35 yearld-olds). It's more like 21 year olds to 24 year olds. PR's average is 24. Canada's average is 23. Uruguay is the only team that brought the full national team. Panama's leader and high scorer is the GW player. Furthermore, PR's team was selected a week before heading over to Rio. And, NO, they have not been playing together for years. That's just another excuse. It sounds like when US Soccer beats Mexico. There's always an excuse that "clearly" explains why they lost because they own the right to be eternally better than US Soccer. Sore, whining losers! Basically, the USA team sucked. It was a combination of the players picked, the coaching, and USA BAsketball's attitude that they can kick butt with college players. The result? We'll see after today's game vs. Argentina. Right on, prhoya! The US team is supposedly made up of guys who will be in the NBA next year (or they selected the wrong college players) and I don't think that Panama and Uruguay is filled with a bunch of players who will be hearing their name called on draft night next year. So there really is not much of an excuse - the coaches didn't do a good enough job and the players didn't do a good enough job to beat teams that have basically no basketball tradition, no world-class players or almost no population for goodness sake! Losing to Argentina or Brasil in the medal round would have been fine, this isn't.
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GIGAFAN99
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Post by GIGAFAN99 on Jul 27, 2007 12:53:46 GMT -5
Good points, exorcist in your next to last post. Giga, sounds like sour grapes. So the USA doesn't care about winning, but just with giving kids a chance to travel abroad? Why go through all the trouble of picking a team by committeee? Just take the first 12 players on a first come, first serve basis. They care but how much can you can say the US cares when they don't use the best players, select a team until the last minute, and practice for a couple of weeks. I mean the whole process is treated like an afterthought. And you don't beat high level teams with low level preparation. And I don't think they think they can win with college players. Why? Well because it's been 24 years since we've won with them so I can't think USA basketball hasn't caught on to this trend.
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chep3
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Post by chep3 on Jul 27, 2007 12:58:18 GMT -5
I agree. This country has lost its sporting pride somewhere along the line. We're not the best in basketball anymore. We're lose in the World Baseball Classic. Our international hockey team doesn't win tournaments. Our men's soccer team isn't there yet. We lose the Ryder cup always. Yet no one seems to care. People care so much more about the ridiculously uninteresting NBA finals than they do about FIBA world championships or the Olympics. Elsewhere in the world, for example, the World Cup and Euro 2008 are much bigger than the Champions League. It's like we just devalue things we don't win at. How about some national pride? It's not so much that we lose that angers me, it's that we don't seem to care.
That being said, I think USA Basketball is in much better shape than it was 5 years ago.
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theexorcist
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Post by theexorcist on Jul 27, 2007 13:00:16 GMT -5
www.usabasketball.com/inside.php?page=constitutionLook at Article 3. Lots of stuff on amateurism. Nothing in terms of "making the United States successful at international competition" or somesuch (really, success isn't a goal at all). And it gets worse. There's nothing that suggests a goal. They support basketball for handicapped indivduals. They support men and women equally. They keep amateurs involved. But there's nothing on encouraging the sport of basketball, or its pursuit recreationally. There's obviously nothing on developing a top-flight international team. They just organize things, make sure that the Paralympic and women's teams don't get short shrift, and keep amateurs involved. There's no there there.
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SFHoya99
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Post by SFHoya99 on Jul 27, 2007 13:06:58 GMT -5
I agree. This country has lost its sporting pride somewhere along the line. We're not the best in basketball anymore. We're lose in the World Baseball Classic. Our international hockey team doesn't win tournaments. Our men's soccer team isn't there yet. We lose the Ryder cup always. Yet no one seems to care. People care so much more about the ridiculously uninteresting NBA finals than they do about FIBA world championships or the Olympics. Elsewhere in the world, for example, the World Cup and Euro 2008 are much bigger than the Champions League. It's like we just devalue things we don't win at. How about some national pride? It's not so much that we lose that angers me, it's that we don't seem to care. That being said, I think USA Basketball is in much better shape than it was 5 years ago. Actually, most of the European Football fans I know are much more interested in the Champions league than the World Cup.
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chep3
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Post by chep3 on Jul 27, 2007 14:58:22 GMT -5
Well, speaking as a diehard Barca fan, I enjoy the CL more than the World Cup because I actually have a rooting stake in it. But I bet if you ask a Milan fan (from Milan) if they'd rather have given up this year's CL trophy or Italy's WC trophy, I'd wager that they'd rather give up the former. Let alone the actual players.
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MCIGuy
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Post by MCIGuy on Jul 27, 2007 15:57:04 GMT -5
SF, did you read the previous pages? It's not 20 year olds to 28 year olds (geez, this age difference is widening by the minute; soon someone will say that it was high schoolers against 35 yearld-olds). It's more like 21 year olds to 24 year olds. I'm not even sure the USA age averages out to 21 either. Slow down. From whatIi've read some if not all of the current players on the PR team have played together before in international events. You don't have an entire roster of new players who have never suited up with any of its fellow national team members to play for the national team. Only Team USA is in that situation. Plus you can sure bet the guys who are playing for PR for the first time have been involved in a tryout period and practice with other members of the national team for at least the past year. After all Puerto Rico is a small country (its not as if they have to gather players separated by thousands of miles and get them all in one location for trials) and you can also bet that the best amateur players of that nation don't have all the NCAA games and restrictions to deal with that keep them from coming together earlier. With a long school season and with some coaches wanting their players to take at least some summer courses in the first summer session to keep them on track academically, exactly when all the Team USA players supposed to be gathered for the tryouts? Is it possible to get them together earlier than July? That may be impossible. How about having them practice with each other a couple of summers before the Pan Am games? Well, by the time the Pan Am games come around 90% of that original group may be gone thanks to early entries into the NBA Draft. Do you think the teams in Puerto Rico and Panama have these types of concerns, logistics and issues to deal with? What are you talking about? USA Basketball wasn't cocky about the team's chances. I don't think USA Basketball has much say in whether it can get the NBA players to play in the Pan Am games. The NBA players, from what i understand, have never participated in the Pan Ams. Just the Olympics, The World Championships and FIBA. That's all. USA Basketball is left with the college players who are not young enough to tke part in the 19 U tourney and can't go after the college players who just left for the NBA (unless those players are going to play for the senior team alongside Kobe, LeBron, Carmello, etc). Maybe USA Basketball (if the NBA agrees) could send a second or third tier group of NBA players but the people associated with college basketball could have a problem with the decreasing amount of opportunities for both college players and college coaches in international competition. Plus, all I kept hearing and reading after the glow of Dream Team 1 had faded was a bunch of folks wanting the college players to replace the NBA players in all the international competition because, in their view, the pros didn't care as much. USA Basketball is caught between a rock and a hard place. No one is happy. And someone above ridiculously wote its acceptable to lose to Brazil and Argentina but not Panama. Well, five years ago it was ridiculous to suggest it was alright for any USA Team to lose to Argentina as well. So just give it time. Losing to Panama wil be acceptable to down the line. Fact: The men's Team USA has not won the evnt since 1983 when a guy names Michael Jordan was its leading scorer. With international players getting much better and the majority of the top notch American players not sticking around long (for over ten years they weren't even going to college at all), is it any surprise that the USA has gotten to a point where the team doesn't even medal? Hell, even the women's team went 20 years before they won the gold earlier this week. And the women's team does not have to face the early departures for the pros like the men's teams do. Is there arrogance with USA Basketball, its coaches and its players? Yes. But after all the losses that arrogance has really shrunk. Where the majority of the arrogance still lie is in the attitudes of the American fans who still think we should dominate the events under these circumstances. Come on now.
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theexorcist
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Post by theexorcist on Jul 27, 2007 16:06:49 GMT -5
MCI:
"Maybe USA Basketball could send a second or third tier group of NBA players but the people associated with college basketball could have a problem with the decreasing amount of opportunities for both college players and college coaches in international competition. "
There's a U-19 championship and the World University Games. I don't see some "need" to give more opportunities to college players who are clearly overmatched.
On the "rock and the hard place" question, the Pan Am, Worlds, and Olympics are all senior-level championships. The team that was created for the Pan Ams lost to the 29th and 30th-ranked teams in the world. Either the team played abysmally poorly, it was poorly-coached, or we weren't putting our best team out there by far.
I don't like the NBA players' attitude that they don't care because they haven't been able to win - Dream Team II at least did that. Getting thumped by Zambia and giving some BS excuses because we didn't build the team right for the international game and because the players practiced for a week makes me mad.
I'm really not indicting the players. This comes from the USA Basketball attitude - or lack thereof.
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prhoya
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Post by prhoya on Jul 27, 2007 19:34:00 GMT -5
MCI,
1) Re: PR Team - no, they do not come together for tryouts, etc... It's exactly like USA Basketball, excapt our population is 4 million vs. 300+M for USA. So, obviuosly, the pool is not as big. For this team, the players come from NBDL, European leagues and the local league (where W. Wilson played). They're professional players, not amateurs, in that they get paid and don't have time, like college players, to hang around for months before the season starts. That's the reason why they don't get together.
2) Re: cocky USA Basketball - that's your opinion and I have mine. As you can see, various posters share my point of view.
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prhoya
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Post by prhoya on Jul 27, 2007 19:36:09 GMT -5
btw, I just got in. USA up by 7 with 1:37 remaining... let's pull it through
Where's Hibbert?
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prhoya
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Post by prhoya on Jul 27, 2007 19:37:49 GMT -5
Commentators are saying that Dorsey's and White's play is keeping Roy out of the game.
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prhoya
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Post by prhoya on Jul 27, 2007 19:43:11 GMT -5
USA wins. Did you see the relief in their faces?
The commentators are talking about national pride and what it meant to the USA to pull out a win against the winner of the group even if they were going to end in 4th place, while Argentina wanted to win because it was against the USA. So it doesn't mean anything?
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sleepy
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Post by sleepy on Jul 27, 2007 19:43:53 GMT -5
I think it was Roys play keeping him out of the game. He did not play well at all today. The game was too fast paced for him to get into the flow.
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Massholya
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Post by Massholya on Jul 27, 2007 19:46:14 GMT -5
When they were in half court sets, Roy was letting himself get pushed out the paint. He was ineffective offensively but managed to change quite a few shots on the other end. Overall, though, it was a very physical game. guys were getting tackled without fouls getting called.
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