TORONTO, Canada — The United States men’s basketball team can leave this city with a smile on their faces.
They came back from a grueling overtime loss to Canada late Friday night to rally from an 56-37 third quarter deficit and defeat the Dominican Republic, 87-82, in a 11 a.m. game Saturday at the Ryerson Centre.
“I think I’m working on about five hours sleep,” 32-year old veteran guard Bobby Brown said. “That game last night was very draining but it showed a lot of character for us to come out here and play the next morning. We had an 8:30 wake up call.
Brown had enough energy left to score 19 points as the Americans saved face. We were down the whole game but we bought into what coach (Mark Few) was saying, “‘Never give up. Play together. And get stops. ‘ that’s what we did. We got their in our comfortable zone and we made plays.
“It means a lot We didn’t want to go home empty handed. We’re been together since July 7. We wanted to go home with something. To go home with the bronze, we’ll take it. It was definitely worth it. Our goal was to win the gold but we get to go home to our failies with a medal around our necks.”‘
This was not a great U.S. team. But they had enough character to play host team Canada tough and then finish strong in the second half. Veteran 35 year old guard Damien Wilkins scored 18 points for the U.S. which put five players in double figures and got contributions from three college age players. Baylor forward Tavrean Prince had 12 points and both Denzel Valentine and guard Ron Baker from Wichita State added 11. Baker also had 5 rebounds, 3 assists and two steals and looked every bit of a first team pre-season All American the past two games with his defense and toughness.
The U.S. made nine threes, outrebounded the Dominican Republic, 35-32 and forced them into 17 turnovers, fueling a frantic comeback by limiting the Dominican Republic, which got 15 points and 9 rebounds from forward Edward Santana to just three field goals and in the fourth quarter when the U.S. fially took the lead. The U.S. outscored the Dominican, 28-14, in the fourth quarter.
“Our guys had their backs pinned firmly against the wall,” Few said. “But they had enough character in the second half to come back. Like we told them beore, you’re going to take this jersey and frame it because you played for U.S. basketball. You got a choice. You can frame it by itself or you can frame it with a medal You can talk to your kids , your grand kids. You get to determine how hard you play.’
This was a completely different experience for Few, who runs one of the best college progams in the country at Gonzaga. “We probably had a total of eight practices, maybe like six decent ones because they went through tyrouts. Those are hard days. It’s frustrating when you don’t have your whole package in and you don’t have guys o the same page. But it’s rewarding in the fact that we’ve been together for three weeks and it’s going to change us for the rest of our lives.
“We developed relationships we’ll have the rest of our lives.”
