HERAKLION, Crete– It has all looked so easy.
Team USA’s U19 men’s team continued to roll through this World Championship tournament, defeating Italy, 86-65, to advance to Saturday night’s semi-finals against Greece. They have won all five of their games by an average margin of 28.8 30 points and have won 16 straight games in this age bracket since a quarterfinal loss to Russia in 2011.
But the Americans will get one of their few doses of reality when they play a Greek team that actually led them for three quarters of a
90-82 victory in a pre-tournament friendly here July 23. You can write off some of an inconsistent performance to the fact the team had only been together for a week and were suffering the effects of jet lag.
But the Greeks are a big, dangerous team.
They were given a tough test by Spain but prevailed 70-59, thanks to a 37-17 second half run. Guard Tyler Dorsey, who was the Gatorade Player of the Year in the state of California after averaging 3.9 points for Pasadena, Calif. Maranthia High and is eligible to play for Greece because his other is Greek, scored all 14 of his points in the second half while 6-11 Kostas Mitoglou, a rising sophomore from Wake Forest, had 11 points and 11 rebounds. The Greeks also have a 7-1 rim protector in Giorgious Papagiannis, who surprisingly was a no show against Spain but is being highly recruited by several American colleges, including Oregon. Dependable 6-7 forward Vasilis Charalampopoulos is finally back.
This will be a road game for the Americans. the unbeaten 5-0 Greeks have packed the Heraklion Sports Arena to watch their team play and the crowd Saturday will be overwhelmingly blue and white.
With Trier, the U.S. rallied to beat Greece in an exhibition.
“We played them in a friendly when we first got over here,” Miller said. “They led for most of the game and in the fourth quarter we broke the game open.
“I believe we’re a better team now than we were then, but I believe they are as well. We’re going to have to play in front of a packed house, and we’re going to have to play through some adversity. It’s going to be a great, great challenge for our team. We’re going to have to play in front of a packed house and … through some adversity. It’s going to be a great challenge.”
Guard Jalen Brunson (Stevenson H.S./Lincolnshire, Ill./Villanova) shot 3-for-3 from 3-point and finished with 17 points, while 6-10 rising high school senior Harry Giles of Wesleyan Christian Academy/ Winston-Salem, N.C. and 6-7 rising senior wing Josh Jackson of Prolific Prep, Calif./Southfield, Mich.) contributed 14 points each, as the USA improved to 5-0 and advanced to medal round semifinals Team USA shot 73 percent in the first quarter and jumped out to a 53-25 halftime lead, before going into cruise control. The U.S. will have to work on its ball handling skills. Aside from Brunson, who is has a 28 to 7 assist turnover ratio and an average efficiency rating of 16.6 and could be the MVP for the Americans in this tournament, the team has been sloppy with its ball handling. “We played against a good team tonight,” said Sean Miller. “The thing about this tournament is it’s a world championship, and when you start getting into the quarterfinals, semifinals, you’re playing against really good players, teams that have won in this tournament.
“Every game that we play from this point on, the competition stiffens. For us a win by this margin tonight is a great win. We’re excited to be in the semifinals. I will say that yesterday we had 26 turnovers; today we had 22; that’s a real problem. If you think about that, that’s 48 times in the last two games we didn’t get a shot at the basket. I think that’s negating some of the things we’re doing better.”
The U.S. has forced an average of 24.2 steals. The Greeks are only committing an average of 14.6 turnovers.
The U.S.-Greece winner will face Croatia or Turkey in Sunday’s title game at 8:30 local time (1:30 a.m. Eastern)
