August 15, 2004
A Changing Of The Guards
Just sat down to watch some Olympic coverage, only to find that the U.S. Men's Basketball team is down 15 points to Puerto Rico!
Guess what happened in Indianapolis last year might not have been a fluke after all.
UPDATE: U.S. down by 12 with 3:47 left.
Checking out the rumor that the U.S. will have to grant Puerto Rico independence if they lose. Nota bene: the U.S. has lost only twice in Olympic competition -- to the Soviet Union in 1972 and 1988.
ANOTHER UPDATE: U.S. keeps missing three pointers -- three for 22 today. Down 13 with 2:10 to go.
DISGRACE UPDATE: U.S. down 19 with 1:09 to go. Puerto Rican players are openly mocking the Americans (who after all, are Americans too).
IT'S ALL OVER: Can somebody tell me how Larry Brown was able to engineer a defeat of the Los Angeles Lakers, but couldn't find a way to get his All-Star squad to defeat Puerto Rico?
If you watched Miracle, there's one scene where U.S. head coach Herb Brooks forced his team to skate endless sprints after a lackluster effort in an exhibition against Norway. Something tells me Brown ought to be ordering his team of pampered millionaires to run suicides on the Olympic court right now.
Anybody who says no gets his passport revoked.
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» America's Broken Rings from BehindTheNet.org
A good chunk of the blogging universe has had its say on the US Olympic basketball team's humiliation versus Puerto Rico yesterday in Greece. Eric McErlain mentioned this morning that he'd gladly trade a basketball bomb-out in Athens for a... [Read More]
Tracked on August 16, 2004 10:45 PM
Couple of immediate observations: first the obvious one, that we couldn't hit an outside shot, and only the occasional free throw. Second, even in the first quarter, our players started throwing tantrums when they didn't get calls the way that all these stars are used to in the NBA.
I just hope they don't go destroy their hotel rooms now.
Posted by:
at August 15, 2004 03:04 PM
Eric, I'm disappointed in you for the "pampered millionaires" crack. No person should take the Olympics seriously.
Posted by:
at August 15, 2004 05:05 PM
Posted by:
at August 15, 2004 11:27 PM
Skip, what are you on about? The Olympics are the world's greatest sporting event. If you take sports seriously, you take them seriously.
Posted by:
at August 16, 2004 01:01 AM
Is anyone even watching? The biggest question is whether the NBA is nervous? This just exemplifies what many believe already, that "NBA basketball" is NOT really basketball but glorified crap. At some point, Stern et al. should start getting nervous that the veneer is coming off their product....
Posted by:
at August 16, 2004 11:20 AM
Unfortunately, running suicides won't alleviate the fact that they can't shoot.
Posted by:
at August 16, 2004 12:58 PM
The real problem is that our opponents take the game seriously before the fourth quarter.
Posted by:
at August 16, 2004 06:03 PM
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