Team USA Still Rolling
It could have been a throwback to an NCAA tournament game in the early 90s judging from the coaches on the sidelines. Coach K and his cerebral, fundamentalist coaching style, versus Nolan Richardson’s uptempo, frenetic “40 minutes of hell.” Only this was an alternative version. Coach K’s roster was full of the greatest stars the NBA has to offer, while Coach Richardson’s? Not so much. After unceremoniously being fired from Arkansas in 2002 for making racial allegations against the school’s administration, Richardson has turned up south of the border coaching the Mexican national team, and likely still wears his trademark cowboy boots.
Team USA dominated the Mexicans mostly in the same manner in which they’ve dispatched all comers in the FIBA Americas Tournament, with the final score of 127-100. The Mexicans were playing this tournament without their star player, Eduardo Najera of the NBA, but still managed to keep the score reasonable, and played the uptempo style that one would expect from Richardson’s team. Still, the USA was too much, as they have been for everyone in this tournament, with balanced scoring ( 19 points from LeBron James, 21 from Kobe Bryant, 19 from Dwight Howard, and 28 from Carmelo Anthony), strong defense (19 forced turnovers and 7 blocks), and no player logging more than 24 minutes. Still the competition should get tougher later in the week as the Americans go against the undefeated Argentine team (and gold medal winners at the last Olympics) and their NBA duo of Carlos Delfino and Luis Scola.
Playing the Argentines should be a chance for the USA to exact revenge against the country that denied the Americans the gold medal in the last Olympics. Some of Argentina’s top players are sitting out this tournament. Manu Ginobili, Andres Nocioni, and Fabricio Oberto will not be playing, but the Argentines still have an impressive roster with all of their players on pro teams in some part of the world. The Argentines will not roll over for Team USA, knowing that they can beat them, but this US team seems to have more focus than the last, and will be looking to even the score against the Argentines.
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