Pan Am Basketball

[tornado]

Pan Am men's basketball starts today...
the first game is in the books and was impressive - the USA plays later at 8pm Central Time

In the early game Brazil clobbered Puerto Rico.
The Puerto Rico team is coached by Rick Pitino, and one of their players is Ramon Clemente - ex Wichita Shocker, and they are using NBA talent with point guard JJ Barea

Anywa, Brazil jumped out to a dominating 23-2 then 31-6 lead after 1 quarter and 51-8 midway thru 2nd qtr then 60-17 at the half!!!
They coasted from there - final 92-59 -


In women's Basketball - yet another huge disappointment as the US loses the gold medal to Canada, trailing by as much as 18 points much of the 2nd half and getting outscored 26-8 over a 7 minute 2nd half stretch!!
I guess they forgot to get a point guard on the women's Pan Am game as we had only 5 assists on 54 shot attempts (plus we had 32 trips to the FT line)..

http://www.courant.com/sports/basketball/hc-pan-am-women-basketaball-final-0721-20150720-story.html

[tornado]

The USA won their first game 85-62 over Venezuela but they did not look good much of the game.
Venezuela lead 41-33 at half and the US rallied late in the 3rd qtr - finally taking the lead for good with about 2 min to go.
Most of the US college players were pretty ineffective - only when the US went with their washed up NBAers (Wilkins, Brown, Anthony Randolph) did they finally outplay the Venezuelans.
Ex Creighton Bluejay Greg Echenique had just 2 pts for Venezuela

Bobby Brown played point guard and had just 2 assists and the US had just 5 total - lots of street-ball-like selfish play

[RoyalShock]

Can you believe they cut Fred VanVleet to keep Brown and Trimble? That team needed a healthy dose of a true point guard last night. 5 assists, 15 turnovers.

Once Ron Baker started getting touches, he scored seven points in the last few minutes of the fourth quarter. He played lockdown D in the 2nd half against one of Venezuela's best scorers.

[mvcfan]

To me the way the entire roster is assembled makes little sense

[tornado]

Good point - a true, self-less point guard would have made an enormous difference....
and actually what happened often was when our point guard got into no-man's land - he just threw up a horrible shot so it got booked as a simple missed FG but was really a bad turnover...
Here's the box score - LINK
I think if all those faux-turnovers were added, then it would have been 20-25 turnovers - do you really want your PG leading the team in shots taken and shots missed while dishing out only 2 assists?

If you look only at the 1st quarter stats where the starters played most of the minutes...
we were just 5-17, with zero assists and four turnovers.
Two starters, Trimble (who started at PG) & Langford - combined for 33 minutes played, yet 8 pts, 1 asst, 7 turnovers.

It'll be interesting to see how they do..

[Chico]

The USA won their first game 85-62 over Venezuela but they did not look good much of the game.
Venezuela lead 41-33 at half and the US rallied late in the 3rd qtr - finally taking the lead for good with about 2 min to go.
Most of the US college players were pretty ineffective - only when the US went with their washed up NBAers (Wilkins, Brown, Anthony Randolph) did they finally outplay the Venezuelans.
Ex Creighton Bluejay Greg Echenique had just 2 pts for Venezuela

Bobby Brown played point guard and had just 2 assists and the US had just 5 total - lots of street-ball-like selfish play

What else did anyone expect besides street-ball?

[tornado]

Mark Few is a good coach - I have to think he will straighten the guys out and not allow bad play
I kinda think he's gonna use Ron Baker at the point soon - at least he'll get an unselfish guy who knows the game and knows team play.

[tornado]

Last night was a totally different game - the US players played so much better...
they blew out Puerto Rico early...game was all but over at half with a halftime score of 65-19

final score 102-70
Ron Baker 4 pts but 0-5 from the arc

[Tommy]

Someone better tell Pitino it's a lot harder when you can't buy the best players in the nation to play for you!

[tornado]

US reverted to their lackluster identity in Thursdays game and lost to Brazil 93-83 but that score was about as close as the US got any time in the 2nd half -
Brazil actually led by 14-18 points most of the 2nd half.

Again, very selfish play - only 5 assists on 55 FG attempts, and little defense on the perimeter as Brazil lit 'em up from the arc shooting 15-26 from the three point line.
Wonder why we don't get kids on our international teams that can drain 3-pointers?
Ron Baker was mostly invisible - didn't make a basket nor get a rebound.

This little guy, Vitor Benite, ate the US defense alive...
going for 34 points and hitting 8-11 from the arc and striking awe into our guys who seemed to just be mailing it in..
In the end it doesn't matter as the US still gets into the semi's and plays Canada tomorrow- then probably Brazil again for the title,
so maybe this was part of their strategy - to not let Brazil see everything they have...

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/2530136-usa-vs-brazil-score-and-reaction-from-2015-pan-am-games

[Da Coach]

The US Pan Am basketball team just lost in the semifinal round to Canada, and will now play Dominican Republic (they are currently 1-3, including 1-2 in pool play), the loser of the other semifinal game, for the Bronze medal. The US is now 2-2, including a 2-1 record in pool play. Canada (4-0, including 3-0 in pool play) advances to the Gold Medal game against a very good Brazil (4-0, including 3-0 in pool play) team.



Again, as we see with this Pam Am team, the US cannot get by sending their B-team players or their C-team players to these international events any more. Whoever is in charge of selecting the players needs to be replaced, and the emphasis needs to be on creating an effective team without glaring omissions or holes.

[tornado]

it was a close game but we faltered late - leading by two with a little over a minute to go then defending poorly, giving up a couple threes, and then hitting only one of our final five shots.

Lack of a good point guard, lack of good outside shooters, and lack of a clutch player really hurt the US.
It's also hard to imagine how the Canadians outrebounded us 50-29 unless our guys were just lazy.
Lesson: if we send our 2nd & 3rd rate players expecting to win - it doesn't surprise me that we don't. (no offense intended to guys like Ron Baker, he had a pretty good game - but overall our Pan Am talent level wouldn't have finished even 2nd or 3rd in the MVC.)

[RoyalShock]

it was a close game but we faltered late - leading by two with a little over a minute to go then defending poorly, giving up a couple threes, and thenhitting only one of our final five shots.

Lack of a good point guard, lack of good outside shooters, and lack of a clutch player really hurt the US.
It's also hard to imagine how the Canadians outrebounded us 50-29 unless our guys were just lazy.
Lesson: if we send our 2nd & 3rd rate players expecting to win - it doesn't surprise me that we don't. (no offense intended to guys like Ron Baker, he had a pretty good game - but overall our Pan Am talent level wouldn't have finished even 2nd or 3rd in the MVC.)

I think you underestimate the talent on these PanAm squads. Lots of former and current pros. Even the US team has a group of what some would say are college all-stars (Brogdon, Tarsz, Baker, Trimble). Combine that with the ridiculous amount of physicality that is allowed, the US team would throttle every team in the MVC. WSU might be competitive but still lose by double-digits.

[Da Coach]

NBA players are eligible, but there was only 1 NBA player on the US roster. The Canadians have a couple NBA big men, along with players like Brady Heslip, a sharpshooter selected purely for his shooting ability, and Jamal Murray, a 5-star Kentucky recruit. They have a balanced and very effective team.

On the other hand, we have had this discussion before, the US roster contains a mismash including a 30-year old career NBA bench player (Ryan Hollins) who averages 3 ppg and 2 rpg for one of the worst teams in the NBA, several obscure former college players who are now playing in various basketball "hotbeds" like Russia, China, and Puerto Rico, one of whom is 35 years old, and a few college players, most of whom will not be among the names on anyone's All-American ballots.

IMO, there are thousands of better choices than some of the players picked for this year's Pan Am team, and we will continue to embarrass US basketball by sending lesser players against international teams that have been getting better for the last several decades.
Maybe our better players don't want to play? But I cannot believe we couldn't have done better than this collection of players.


The US roster-

http://www.usab.com/mens/pan-american-games/roster.aspx

[tornado]

Ron Baker is averaging 7.5 ppg, 1.8 rpg, 1 assist, and 22% from 3-point range.