TORONTO– Just when it looked like the U.S. men’s basketball men was about to figure it out I these Pan Am games, they suffered a harsh reality check.
A well coached, more experienced and fundamentally sound Brazil team schooled them, 93-83,in the final game of pool play, forcing the Americans to play host Canada , the winner of Pool A, in what is essentially a road game Friday night in the medal round semi-finals at the Ryerson Centre.
Brazil , coached by Ruben Magnano, who coached the Argentinian team to an Olympic gold medal in 2004, put o a clinic, shooting percent and making threes and the U.S. didn’t help itself, reverting to some bad habits defensively and too much one on one basketball.
At one point, they were down 18 before rallying to within 90-93 in the final minute before veteran 30-year old guard Bobby Brown– who plays in China– in china-0 missed a three with 44 seconds to play.
. in the end, they had no answers for players like 25-year old guard Vitor Benite, a three time All Star from National Brazil League power Flamengo, who lit the Americans up for eight three pointers and 34 points, constantly draining shots from the top of the key and deep corner..
It was a performance worthy of the great Brazilian Naismith Hall of Famer Oscar Schmidt.
“We were really excited to show this type of basketball as a type, everybody playing defense, everybody running,” Benite.”To do it against a team like the U.S. I thik we did a great job. I personally felt I was on fire but it was really excited to watch my teammates help me get he ball in one spots.
“We don’t play as much 1 on 1 as the U.S. We don’t have this quality. We got to play as a team. We got to try to find the open man. We got to move quick and we got to get in position to shoot and I think we did pretty well today.”
This was an learning experience for the U.S. team, which is a hybrid off older international players and younger college stars.
They hurt us with a bunch of screens off the ball,” U.S. coach Mark Few said “No. 8 (Benite) was on fire. We tried a variety of people on him. /They screen so well and pass so well. it makes them hard to guard. We went into it not wanting to give up threes but they ended up spacing it. We knew their one big could shoot it but then their other big guys started to make shots and that made it very difficult.”
Joao Paulo Batista, a 33-year old veteran, scored 13 points for Brazil 5 of 6 shooting. Six foot 10 inch 23 year old center-Augusto Lima had 13 o 5 of 9 shooting and 6-9 Rafael Souza had 10 , making 3 of 4 threes. Brazil shot 31 of 59 and made 25 of 26 threes.
Former Kansas guard Keith Langford, who plays in Russia, led the U.S. with 17 points. Brown and Baylor forward Tavrean Prince, the U.S. most athletic player, each scored 16 for the Americans. But it wasn’t enough. Brazil took over the game for good in the third quarter when they extended an 11 point lead to 75-57.
The Brazilians were just too physical and they never allowed the majority of Few’s college stars to establish themselves.
Having to experience how incredibly physical this brand of basketball is hard enough– and not just around the rim. I think we felt it was going to be physical around the rim. But it was so physical I think it was hard for some of our college guys to get its offense or be able to function offensively.”
the U.S. older players like former Kansas star guard Keith Langford , who plays in Russia and 35-year old, former Georgia guard Damien Wilkins, a 35-year old basketball nomad who played I the Puerto Rico Superior League this year, knew there was always the possibility of a meltdown in this competition.
“This is indicative of real international competition,” Langford said. ” I tried to explain to the guys what it was going to be like. These guys play in the NBB and the Spanish League and we weren’t prepared for it. Our college players haven’t been through this and on top of that, the guys who have played internationally haven’t played together I adverse situation. If anything this is good for us and we know the level we’re at. The good thing for us is we’re ot out of it. We have time. so we’ll see them again, hopefully.”
The U.S. team only had 12 days of practice before they participated I this tournament. The Brazilians practices for 40 days as a team before they flew up here. through and it showed.
“We were bad on both ends of the floor consistently and they took advantage of it,” Wilkins said . “Offensively, they took advantage of every defensive mistake we made and they climbed up I us and made it difficult for us to execute anything offensively ad we feel back into the trap we did against Venezuela where when they got into us and they rattled us, making us do a little bit too much one on one.””
The US had just 5 assists and 18 turnovers.
At least Few has a silver lining going forward.
“We kow we’re in the medal round and everything is still I order,” he said. “Now, we got to beat Canada. Obviously they were that team from the other side. Now we have to beat them a day earlier than we hoped.”
