SANTA CRUZ, CA— USA Basketball’s World Cup qualifying coach Jeff Van Gundy lives in Houston but he was in Buenos Aires coaching a G-League all star team in the AmeriCup against the best teams in South America at the end of last summer when his hometown was savaged by Hurricane Harvey.
When he returned home, he got a first hand look at the flooding that had submerged that Texas city.
“It was bad,” he recalled. “With that in mind, I can;t even imagine the devastation Puerto Rico suffered when it was it hit by Hurricane Maria in late September.
The catastrophic category 4 hurricane caused $96 billion in damage and destroyed the electrical grid and over 70,000 homes. The natural disaster and loss of 70,000 homes was on everyone’s mind here last night when the Americans defeated that island’s qualifying team 83-75, before a crowd of 1,943 at Kaiser Permanente Arena.
The U.S.improved its record to 4-0 in group play and qualified for the second round. But Puerto Rico, whose enthusiastic fans spent the entire game waving flags and banging on clappers, made them work for it. Puerto Rico chipped away at a huge 21-point deficit to pull within 69-68 before the Americans, which got 16 points from former Kentucky star Aaron Harrison of the Reno Bighorns and 14 points and seven assists from former UCLA guard Larry Drew II of the Sioux Falls Skyforce, made enough big plays to give themselves the necessary breathing room after a breakaway dunk by former Connecticut guard Rodney Purvis of the Lakeland, Fla. Magic and a jumper by Harrison increased the lead to 76-71 with 3:02 to play.
Still, it was hard not to applaud Puerto Rico’s emotionally fueled performance. “You want to beat them,” Van Gundy said. “But you can still respect the way they go about theri business and compete.”
That inspired team is playing for something bigger than itself.
“We don’t have people playing for a contract overseas,” Puerto Rico coach Eddie Casiano said. “We have people who want to play for the name on the jersey. If what we do gives them a little happiness for two hours, that’s important. A lot of people don’t have a lot of things. They’re struggling. We’re in an economic crisis. Parts of our island still don’t have electricity. They need water and food.
“I’m proud of the way we competed in the second half. We gave ourselves a chance to win. We just didn’t get it done at the end. But we’re building something here. We haven;t been to the Olympics since 2004. That’s our ultimate goal. That was a young team we put out there tonight. We were missing seven players. But our ultimate goal is to get back to the Top 10 in the world, which is where we were when I played.”
Former Colorado State guard Gian Clavell, who is playing in Turkey, scored 23 points for Puerto Rico and 6-11 forward Jorge Bryan Diaz from Nebraska, who plays professionally in Mexico, added 12 for Puerto Rico, which had to travel to Austin and San Antonio to practice for road games against Mexico and the U.S. “We don’t have a court back home,” Casiano said. “But we are a small island with a big heart,” Casiano said. “Puerto Ricans love their country. We are all family. They gave us a court to practice on and fed us. They are family.”
This is the third different set of players Van Gundy has coached since the AmeriCup last summer and there was a concern there might not be enough talent in the rematch against a Puerto Rican team that pushed the U.S. to the limit during an 85-78 loss last November in a game played in Orlando because the arena at San Juan was unavailable after a hurricane.
“We won by seven, eight points,” Van Gundy said. “But the games could have gone either way.”
The United States got a 17 points and a game high 11 rebounds from forward Jameel Warney, the MVP of the 2017 AmeriCup, in the first game and 17 points and 8 rebounds from Reggie Hearn. Angel Vassallo had 16 points for Puerto Rico, who tied the game at 63-63 in the final 10 minutes before the Americans managed to create some breathing room as Semaj Christon and Xavier Munford each scored five points during a 10-2 run to lift the U.S. to a 72-65 lead with 5:21 left.
There is only one player– 6-10 Travis Wear– on this team who played for that team. Drew was selected to that team but was injured and did not play. Van Gundy thought he might have a shot at Warney again this time, but the former Stony Brook star experienced a personal tragedy after his father passed away three weeks ago, leaving the Americans to scramble for competitive players who could win at this level.
“This window, we all knew each other to the extent we had played against each other in the G-League,” Drew said. “But anytime bring in guys in who haven’t played together, it’s going to be a challenge. We started off in Los Angeles, the week of the NBA All Star game. There was a lot of extra curricular activities going on. You have to give the coaches credit for not letting us get distracted.”
The Americans, who shot just 6 for 27 from beyond the arc Friday night against in a blowout victory over Cuba, made 11 threes, overcoming the fact they only shot 38.5 percent. They out rebounded Puerto Rico, 46-36. It’s amazing what two days of practice with Van Gundy has done for this team’s chemistry.
This U.S. really stepped up in this game.
“They outplayed us in the first meeting,” U.S. qualifying coach Jeff Van Gundy recalled. “They dominated the game for the most part. We had some guys make some huge plays down the stretch. Xavier Munford, Reggie Hearn and Jameel Warney came up huge, but Angel Rodriguez dominated the game. They knew us better than we knew them and that was our fault.”
Part of the problem has been the talent pool USA Basketball senior manager Sean Ford has to choose from.
Technically, they have the entire G-League, but USA Basketball is not allowed to take any players who are on 50-50 contracts and split time between the NBA the the G-League during the season. There has also been an issue with agents, who do not want their clients leaving to play for this team in the middle of what been a strong G-League season for fear it might affect their chances to get a 10-day deal with the NBA.
Fortunately, that will not be an issue in the June, when the Americans travel to Mexico and Cuba, to complete the first round and in September for the first two games in the second round because the G- League season is either finished or has not started yet.
