Dirk is on fire. Shouldn't surprise --- one of the five best players on the planet. Clearly the best player on the floor. US up two and Dirk just got hacked on a three-pointer.
US pulls out the win over Germany. Obviously the USA can just "flick the switch" off and on. They let Dirk get off in the 1st half, then in the 2nd half, they get smart and put Ben Wallace on Nowitzki, and they win the game. quietly grumbles... dreams of a USA team with Bryant, Iverson, Garnett, Duncan, Shaq
you wouldn't want Iverson on that team if you want the other players to get the ball. NBA teams don't even want Iverson so USA definately doesn't. this is my ultimate current USA team: C Shaq PF Duncan SF Kobe Bryant (yeah I know, he's out of position) SG Reggie Miller (the best shooter on the planet) pg Jason Kidd Bench C Garnett PF Ben Wallace (best defender in the NBA easily) SF Grant Hill (healthy ever?) SG Ray Allen PF Elton Brand (obviously proving his worth on the intrnational level) SF Keith Van Horn (need an all around utility man) PG Jay WIlliams
Tonight's scores: USA 104-87 Germany Paul Pierce. China 96-82 Algeria Yao with 38 points, 13 boards, and 8 blocks...too bad it was against Algeria. New Zealand 98-85 Venezuela Go Kiwis! Kirk Penney and Phill Jones with 20 points each, Diaz with 26 for Venezuela. Argentina 100-81 Russia Argies proving that they are a medal contender with a comprehensive win. Sconochini scored 26 and Ginobili added 21. Russia plays Venezuela for survival. I'll be in Indy tomorrow...looks like I picked the wrong afternoon session (Canada-Yugoslavia and Turkey-Lebanon) but the night session (Argentina-New Zealand, USA-China) should be great.
Ted, man, I must say with all due respect that is one weak team. Jay Williams? Hasn't played a sec in the NBA yet. Keith Van Horn? No way. Elton Brand is still too raw. Reggie Miller is too far past his prime, and mostly one-dimensional. Finally, how can you leave Mike Bibby off the team? Bibby is pound for pound the best player in the NBA right now.
Well, at least we saw George Carl heavily perspire during three quarters . If we decrease the number of turnovers and start defending against the 3 pt shots, then we'll get you in the playoffs
I agree I should have put Bibby on. But Miller stays. He is still the best shooter in the NBA and is still the best clutch player, did you not see the playoffs this year? Just last year Reggie dropped 17 in one quarter on Kobe Bryant. You need a 3 point shooter in international competition and he's the best there is. But Ian...a weak team? Sorry man but Duncan and Shaq would be the best front court USA ever had, even better than '92. Jay WIlliams is on because he was the best college player, much like Latner in '92. Jason Kidd is the starting PG because he is pass first and would get the others the ball where they need it.
That was Vince Carter's charity game. In Toronto. Just a few miles away from where the Canadian team was training at that time.
Saturday Scores: Yugoslavia 82-69 Canada Spain 88-55 Angola Turkey 107-80 Lebanon Brazil 90-86 Puerto Rico Ayuso continued his torrid play for PR, hitting nine threes on his way to 31 points. USA 84-65 China Germany 102-70 Algeria Russia 86-69 Venezuela Argentina 112-85 New Zealand The top 3 from each group advance to the second round, while the last-place teams (Canada, Lebanon, Algeria, and Venezuela) will play for 13th-16th places. Lebanon fired their coach yesterday.
Brazil 3 and 0 taking on Angola..and again losing the entire match ties it in the end to take it to Overtime. Now its Brazil 83-78. Another spectacular comeback for Brazil, on its way to 4-0. Tough competition ahead though, Spain and Yugoslavia. That will be a real test for Brazil. Hopefully those teams will be a bit tired since they have had some tough games also.
Monday's Results: Brazil 86-83 Angola (OT) Brazil ties the games with three free throws with 8 seconds left in regulation and wins in OT. How long will their luck hold up? Angola had controlled the game by hitting 13 threes. Puerto Rico 85-83 Yugoslavia. Yugos apparently read too many press clippings, and now the showdown with the US might come in the quarterfinals. PR fought back from an 11-point deficitin the final quarter and won on two free throws by Ortiz in the final second. Former Suns center Daniel Santiago dominated with 31 points and 10 rebounds, while Carlos Arroyo, coming back from an injury hit some big shots in the fourth. Spain 87-64 Turkey Spain still looking good at 4-0, best defensive team in the tournament so far and a lot of three-point shooting. Germany 84-64 New Zealand Sean Marks out for the tournament with an eye injury, but the Kiwis could still make the quarters with a win over China. USA 106-82 Russia This is so much less fun than playing the evil Soviets. Argentina 95-71 China Yao with a mediocre performance as the Argies roll to 4-0.
Tuesday's Games Yugoslavia 90-69 Brazil The Yugos finally play well and thrash previously undefeated Brazil, jumping out to a 22-6 lead and never looking back. Stojakovic had 19 and Gurovic 15 in 18 minutes for Yugoslavia. Marcelinho had 15 for Brazil, who hit only four three-pointers today. Puerto Rico 73-65 Spain Puerto Rico pulls off their second straight upset. Antonio Latimer, a high school teammate of Steve Blake and Udonis Haslem, came off the bench to score 18 points, including some crucial baskets after the game was tied at 61. Gasol paced Spain with 16 points and 11 rebounds. Turkey 86-66 Angola No magic left for Angola as the Turks rout them with a 22-8 third quarter. Turkcan and Kutulay combined for 49 points. Standings --------- Brazil 4-1 Spain 4-1 Puerto Rico 4-1 Yugoslavia 3-2 Turkey 2-3 Angola 1-4 Brazil, Spain, and PR have all clinched QF spots. The Yugoslavia-Turkey winner tomorrow will take the final place. Argentina 86-77 Germany Argentina sets up a showdown with the US tomorrow night after a comfortable win. Nocioni (the guy who had the dunk over Garnett a few years ago) was perfect from the field (7/7) on his way to 19 points, and Argentina played their best defense of the tournament, holding Germany to 32% shooting. Nowitzki had 21, but 15 came from the free throw line. Russia 95-68 China No problem for Russia, who hit 14 threes. Karassev led the way with 21 points. Yao had 13 points and 9 rebounds for China, who was led by Menk Bateer's 18 USA 110-62 New Zealand 50-46 early in the third...60-16 after that. Standings --------- United States 5-0 Argentina 5-0 Germany 3-2 New Zealand 2-3 Russia 2-3 China 1-4 The USA and Argentina have obviously clinched QF berths and play for first place in the group tomorrow night. Then it gets complicated, as there is a chance of a three-way tie (either GER, NZ, RUS for 3rd-5th or NZ, RUS, CHN for 4th-6th) depending on the results of tomorrow's games. If the same tiebreakers as in Sydney are used, the ties will be broken based on point average (points scored divided by points allowed) in games between the tied teams. So still anything can happen, although Russia would look very good in the second case. 13th Place: Canada 98-97 Venezuela 15th Place: Algeria 100-70 Lebanon
Why is there such a ridiculous attendance in Indianapolis? Not enough commercials for it or is it not enough interest due to NBA and NFL quality sports? I mean, at the moment the Women Volleyball World Championships are in Germany - nobody is really interested in that, but then they chose to have it in the province with medium sized arenas - and it is crowded there. The way they do it with Indianapolis is just bad - looks extremely stupid on TV to have about 98% of the seats empty; the players must feel very bad to play the best international competition in front of a European 3rd division attendance; and unfortunately the world again gets the image that US people are just interested in events if the USA is involved and don't care for other nations (like Atlanta 96) - an impression that seemed to have belonged to the past after Salt Lake City prior this year.
Is the attendance that bad or are the arenas just big? This will probably end up being the championships with the second-highest attendance ever (behind the 1994 tournament in Canada, which had several obvious advantages). The FIBA communications director says the average attendance for the first round was the highest ever. Total through Tuesday is 123,586. Aside from the fact that the WBC has never been a big event in the US (compared to the Olympics), I think the US team (which would be the most likely to draw big attendances) is in a bit of a no-win situation--play well and win by a lot and no one cares because it's boring, play poorly and have close games and no one cares because it's not a "real" US team anyway. Also ticket prices are fairly high, and how many people do you expect to show up on Tuesday afternoon for Turkey-Angola? There's an article from the local paper about the attendance issue: http://www.indystar.com/article.php?krav03.html What are the attendances like? How big are the arenas? Ticket prices? I see the US is 4-0 so far.
Really that much? I can't believe the numbers given in the article. Here only the German games are covered and there seem to be 500 journalists + 200 fans in the arena. But okay - why don't they a smaller city or smaller arenas to make it look like more? Sure, but the US team isn't really bad (3rd best NBA scorer, best rebounder, best assistant are in) and in a smaller city without NBA basketball this probably would have been a bigger attraction. Who is responsible for the ticket prices, FIBA or the organizers? I got no clue about the attendance, but in the small reports I watched all arenas were sold out. They play in eight different cities and I think the arenas are between 3.000 and 9.000 - but don't forget that it's a women volleyball tournament, MUCH less attractive than a Basketball WC. Let the US team or Germany play here and you can easily fill the KölnArena (18.500) and the Turkish and Greek citizens also would fill the arenas of their teams.
for whatever reason, this tournament is widely ignored by Americans. Even my friends, who are big NBA fans havn't been following it. Even if the US did sent it's best players people still wouldn't care. But back in '92 people cared. I saw USA play at the Palace and it was sold out for months beforehand. Then again, the big names in basketball back then(Magic, Jordan, Bird) were bigger names than today's stars (Kobe, Vince, Shaq).
The attendence for these games has been so bad they don't even report it in the box scores in local newspapers they put a NA where it says attendence for the game.
Keep in mind that there are two games per session, and not everyone who attends the session watches both games--on Saturday for example, almost all the Yugoslav fans left after their game with Canada and did not watch the Turkey-Lebanon game, while many fans for that game did not watch the first one. Also IIRC, Germany has played opposite the US (same session, different venue) several times, which will obviously depress attendance at their games. Finally, I think that the crowds are so small compared to the size of the venues (especially the RCA Dome) that it's very difficult to judge accurately...how do you tell the difference between 1500 and 3000 in a 33000 seat arena? I'm not 100% sure how the host site is determined, but I'm pretty sure it's more like the Olympics than the World Cup in that it is bid on and hosted by cities and local committees (the Indiana Sports Corp. in this case) rather than national organizations. Indianapolis has been aggressive in bringing in major sporting events, from the Pan Am Games in 1987 to the WBC to the World Swimming Championships which will be held there shortly. Also many US national championships/Olympic trials. I don't know of any other US city that has bid to host this event. And in many ways Indianapolis is a good choice, with two nice downtown venues four blocks from each other, no Major League Baseball team to compete for fans, and it's also not a big college football town. As for stadium size, there just aren't that many "mid-size" arenas, especially ones that would be suitable for a World Championship. Possibly, but I can't think of many non-NBA cities with two good arenas for this tournament. The problem with the US team is that until the games are competitive enough to be attractions in their own right, the team itself has to be the attraction, and this one is pretty uninspiring. Presumably the organizers. Well, Europe has several advantages over the US as a host for this tournament: 1. Both the host and the US can be major draws. 2. The US might be more of a draw overseas because of the novelty factor. 3. More accessible for fans of the other European teams, while the only participating country that can reace Indy by car/rail is Canada, who doesn't bring any fans. Maybe this is a factor for the volleyball tournament? 4. Other countries can have an "excitement" factor if the hosts do better than expected, or the team rarely qualifies for the tournament. In the US, everyone expects the team to win all the games easily, so nothing could ever happen to suddenly make people interested (well, maybe if the US lost).