I'm hoping all the heavy criticism of Pop and the national team was as premature as the eagerness to fire Budenholzer, dismiss the Greek Freak as a truly great player, and give up on his supporting cast a few times along their championship run.
USA gets Australia in the semis after the Aussies destroyed Argentina. A nice rematch opportunity for the loss in Las Vegas.
The team appears to be getting more familiar with one another. Hopefully that combined with the increase in talent (Booker, Holiday, and Middleton playing now instead of Garland, Johnson, Grant (who is on the roster but basically not playing), and Beal) they should be able to emerge victorious.
https://results.nbcolympics.com/bask...final-2/677583
Yet Rubio had a +/- of -23 in a game where the score differential was 14. A good team should generally beat a lesser team where one player had a huge game. We may test that theory against Slovenia.
Yep. Turn Rubio into a scorer. He can beat you with a 27/17 game. But can't beat you as a scorer. I am generally of the opinion that great guards simply can't be contained. Ball handling is simply to good to be defended without a trap, and trapping leads to open 3s and losses. Defend PGs on an island and make them one dimensional.
The women blew out Australia 79-55 to move to the semis. Chelsea Gray had 7 points in 19 minutes off the bench. She also led the team with 8 assists.
Q "Why do you like Duke, you didn't even go there." A "Because my art school didn't have a basketball team."
On underrated aspect I hadn't realized: there are fewer games at the Olympic this year. In years past, the 12 teams were in two groups of six. Playing each other once meant five group stage games. Then three knockout rounds.
Now the 12 teams are in three groups of four, so each team plays only three group stage games before the quarterfinals. It doesn't seem like a huge change, but that's 40% fewer group stage games.
Agree that Team USA is looking better each game. If this tournament lasted two more weeks I'd feel extremely bullish about our chances. But we don't have that time, have to do it on the fly. And the margin for error is much lower now that we're down to the clear top-4 teams in the tournament.
Alas, my days of watching a game until 2:30 AM are behind me, so I'll have to wait for the headlines in the morning, and gird myself against waking up to "Australia STUNS United States" headlines.
The US has been tapped as a 12 point favorite against Australia by bookies around the world. The men are -350 to win the gold medal. The women, by the way, are -650 to win the gold. That -350 implies about a 77% chance that Team USA will win the men's tournament. The -650 converts to almost an 87% chance the women win the gold.
Why are you wasting time here when you could be wasting it by listening to the latest episode of the DBR Podcast?
Why are you wasting time here when you could be wasting it by listening to the latest episode of the DBR Podcast?
Pops poking his middle finger up thru his gravesite dirt...this should be interesting.