September 05, 2002
It's The Morning After For
It's The Morning After For USA Basketball. . . And the post mortems after the 87-80 loss last night to Argentina are beginning to arrive. USA Today has a helpful poll asking if this U.S. team is a failure. Last I looked, the Yes vote was winning with about 70 percent.
The Washington Post's Steve Wyche has a workmanlike breakdown of, well, the U.S. breakdown (no word yet on whether or not Wyche is enjoying all Indianapolis night life has to offer). My favorite stat from last night's game: barely more than 6,000 fans were in the stands at Conseco Field House last night to watch the game -- and this in the cradle of American basketball. Although I'm sure as time goes by, the number of people who watched this game in Argentina is sure to skyrocket.
Over at the New York Times, Harvey Araton is taking a more philosophical point of view:
IT was inevitable from the day the celebrity pros from the United States embarked on a global strategy and hung the first racks of jerseys abroad that said, "Buy me."
Beginning with Barcelona, the basketball wannabes of the admiring world collected their autographs and took their pictures. They later lost their fear and established a plan. The Lithunians just missed in Sydney. The Brazilians got to overtime last summer at the Goodwill Games. Nobody remains infallible forever. In the case of the N.B.A., over a startlingly short decade in the international arena, supremacy gave way to superiority and then to survival and finally, last night, submission. . .
No Shaq, no Kobe, no McGrady, but please, no excuses, for more shocking than the score — Argentina 87, U.S.A. 80 — was how it was achieved. For all the talk of how the Europeans and Asians and South Americans now have game, the Argentines surely did not beat the United States last night at its own game. They won with the passing and precision you would have found in an Indiana country high school gymnasium with wooden backboards 40 years ago. They beat the United States at a game it abandoned — for better or worse, and let that be open for lengthy discussion — a long time ago. . .
Do you believe in miracles? Not really, because this was no miracle. This was inevitable.
Watching the broadcast after the game had ended last night, I couldn't help but think about the small group of Argentine fans who kept gleefully shouting, "AR-GEN-TI-NA, AR-GEN-TI-NA, AR-GEN-TI-NA!" A few years ago, I went to RFK Stadium for an international friendly between the U.S. National Soccer Team and Argentina. U.S. goalkeeper Kasey Keller kept the U.S. in the game, stopping a penalty kick just before halftime, and Joe-Max Moore put the game away with a goal in the last five minutes for a 1-0 victory.
As I walked out of the stadium with my friends, high off the victory, I couldn't help but notice the stunned looks on the faces of the Argentine fans (as with most international soccer matches, we U.S. fans were outnumbered on home soil). After all, we had beaten them at their game, something they could have never conceived of before. It was a great feeling. We were awfully gleeful.
Well folks, payback is a . . . You can fill in the blank yourself. So, while globalization means the U.S. can fight to the quarterfinals of the World Cup in soccer, it also means that our once dominant basketball teams run the risk of being embarassed too. And somehow, I just can't get very upset about that. In fact, something tells me that the game of basketball will be all the better for it.
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