UNI at the World University Games in Thailand

[Da Coach]

For the first time, USA Basketball has sent a single team of players from one school to an international event. University of Northern Iowa was selected to play for the USA in the World University Games which began today in Thailand.

Maybe it was a mistake. Northern Iowa is getting blasted. They trail a team from Lithuania 57-27 at the half. They are playing awful, can't make a basket.
Eric Coleman, who will get consideration as MVC Preseason Player of the Year and will be one of the top 2 or 3 big men in the league, has 2 points, 1 rebound, and 3 fouls at the half. Brooks McKowen (who has already graduated and completed his 4 years of college eligibility) has 0 points, 2 turnovers, and 3 fouls. It sounds like the inexperience with international competetion is killing UNI.

UNI has now come back to score the first 8 points of the 2nd half to now trail 57-35.

More bad news for UNI--
Sophomore Guard Kwadzo Ahelegbe injured his knee and will be out at least several weeks. See the bottom of this article--

http://desmoinesregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070807/SPORTS020704/708070410/-1/NEWS04

[Da Coach]

Latest score--
Lithuania 65
Northern Iowa 44

[meth]

So whose idea was this?

[tornado]

It was decided last spring, since a lot of the top college players are already playing in other various events, such as.....
The adidas Nation Basketball Experience

http://www.draftexpress.com/viewarticle.php?a=2202

and the USA Basketball Select Team for the 2007 USA Senior National Team

http://usabasketball.com/news.php?news_page=07_msnt_select_team

and some would be just getting back from the Pan Am Games and wouldn't have had time to prepare for the World University Games.

Here is a story on how it came about, but it sounds like a little luck for UNI and a little of who you know and right place/right time.

http://www.wcfcourier.com/articles/2007/04/06/news/breaking_news/doc46167f43509ae702274460.txt

Also, here are some other discussion topics and links about UNI & the World University Games

http://www.bradleyfans.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?t=7096

http://www.qctimes.com/articles/2007/08/03/sports/doc46b2c59788f46577764433.txt

As Da Coach noted above, UNI is also taking its graduated seniors, and other incoming and transfer players, including Brooks McKowen and Grant Stout

http://www.wcfcourier.com/articles/2007/08/03/sports/local/doc46b32b7b9db0a504910477.txt

http://desmoinesregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070807/SPORTS020704/708070410/-1/NEWS04

And the news is not all doom and gloom, as the womens team, which is the entire team from UNC-Charlotte, won their first game 58-55 over Latvia.

[Da Coach]

Final score--
Lithuania 97
UNI 63

Carlton Reed (transfer from Iowa) lead UNI with 15 points
Soph Adam Koch had 12. Eric Coleman and Jordan Eglseder combined to go 3-13 with 8 points and 7 boards.

Lithuania shot 56% for the game, UNI shot 36%.
Free Throws Lithuania-76% UNI-55%.
Rebounds- Lithuania 37 UNI 23.

Just an old fashioned butt whippin'

[Da Coach]

Final stats--

http://202.29.240.36/ENG/BK/BKR173A_BK040010200004ENG.htm

[tornado]

This hurts....their graduated (5th year) point guard Brooks McKowen had one basket (1-4), 1 rebound, 1 assist, but 4 turnovers, 4 fouls.

[MDCowboy]

UNI may be in over their heads a lot in this tourney. The reality is that the rest of the world has gotten a lot better in basketball and really always seems to have a lot of taller players who are well schooled in fundamentals.

Coleman probably was outsized a lot by Lithuania. He seemed to do well against POB and knew how to use all of his 6-6 frame to his advantage.

I think this tourney is now more about being respectable than winning for UNI. Still, it is good practice even if they give a lot of PT to the graduated seniors.

[tornado]

All Lithuania's players are 20-23 years old, pretty much same as UNI,
and Lithuania does have a little height advantage.

Here are the heights of the players on the two teams:

UNI- 5-10, 5-11, 6-1, 6-2, 6-2, 6-3, 6-4, 6-5, 6-7, 6-7, 7-0
Lith- 6-1, 6-3, 6-3, 6-4, 6-4, 6-5, 6-5, 6-7, 6-7, 6-9, 7-0, 7-1.

[MDCowboy]

Tornado - the reality is that international players know how to play team basketball better than players in our country do. Here - it is all about the flash and the Sportscenter highlight play, less about the fundamentals and team basketball.

Now you would figure UNI is more schooled than most here at team basketball, but the reality the rest of the world is getting very, very good at basketball and is closing the gap. True they don't have LeBron's, Kobe's, Dwight Howard's, Chris Bosh's with freakish athletic ability... but they just have guys who compete and play the game right. And many of them also grow their players pretty tall too ......

[tornado]

It is already Wednesday in Bangkok, (nearly 1AM) but I checked the schedule and the USA team (UNI team) does not play their next game until Friday, at 11:15AM local time in Bangkok, against Angola.
Then that will end their pool play, so that the next round of play (which isn't scheduled yet) will begin on Sunday.
There are 24 teams/countries entered and competing in Mens Basketball, and here is a list of those countries competing, in eight pools of three teams each:

Angola
Australia
Brazil
Canada
Chinese Taipei
Czech Republic
Finland
Germany
Greece
Israel
Japan
Kazakhstan
Korea
Lithuania
Mexico
New Zealand
People's Republic of China
Russian Federation
Serbia
South Africa
Thailand
Turkey
Ukraine
United States of America

[PTTB]

A couple things about this game.

1. Kwadzo Ahelgbe sprained his MCL in the scrimmage against Japan on Monday. He's out 4-6 weeks. He was the starting PG. I think McKowen has now been pressed into duty. UNI's other to-be point guard, Matt Culliver, is almost done with his ACL repair rehab (surgery back in Feb.). So, UNI is thin at the PG spot...that's why Brooks went. Thank goodness, I guess...just no on the ball defenders that Culliver and Ahelgbe will be. Also, Jared Josten is not 100%.

2. Lithuania is made up of mostly guys who play in the top pro league in Lithuania...hardly college players! Now, they do have two guys that did play US college ball. One was a Big 12 All-Newcomer in 2006, the other was a 15 and 6 guy at Old Dominion (a pretty solid school). I did some research on these guys...here is what I found out:
Michailo ANISIMOV---plays for Neptunas Klaipeda, the 2nd best team in the top league in Lithuania. Led the team in points per game. He's playing against 20 and 30 year olds all year long. Neptunas made it to the Final Four in Lithuania.
Marius PREKEVICIUS---played last season for the BC Siauliai in the top Lithuania league...who made it to the semis. Logged the 4th most minutes on his team and led his team in the assists.
Mantas KALNIETIS---played for Zalgiris-Sabon (again in the top league in Lithuania). Logged the 6th most minutes on his team, but led the team in assists. 3 year pro.
Antanas KAVALIAUSKAS---played for Texas A&M last season averaging 12 points and 6 boards a game. He was a Big 12 All-Newcomer Team member 2 years ago.
Vytenis JASIKEVICIUS---also played for Zalgiris-Sabon. Played in 14 of the team's 16 games.
Valdas VASYLIUS---Played for Old Dominion last year. Averaged 16 pts and 6 board a game. Was a double digit minute per game guy all four year.
Rolandas ALIJEVAS---Played for Polonia, in the top Polish league. He's also played in Switzerland, France, and Lithuania. Was the team's 5th leading PPG producer and top assist man.
Justas SINICA---Played for Sakalai, in the top Lithuania league. Was the 5th leading scorer for his team.
Jonas MACIULIS---Played for Zalgiris (the 3rd player on this team from Zalgiris). Played in every game this year and averaged over 15 minutes per game.

Also the average age difference:
Lithuania 23 y/o
UNI/USA 21 y/o

Coach Jake does have a blog going.

http://unipanthers.cstv.com/sports/m-baskbl/spec-rel/080707aaa.html

As a Panther fan, I'm not thrilled with the outcome, but all things considered I think it was a good experience for the guys. International ball is different than what is played in Peoria, Carbondale, Omaha, Springfield, Des Moines, etc...and the fact that UNI was able to practice with all of their incoming recruits was invaluable in the long run. This team is missed 3 of it's expected top 10 guys (O'Rear, Culliver, and Ahelegbe)...and as I said, Josten had a nasty sprained ankle before they left for Thailand. UNI is basically playing pros who are bigger, stronger, and more skilled...and playing better competition will always help a team.

The next game is Thursday night at 11:15 Illinois/Iowa time. If you are up, come to Panther Nation and we will be having a discussion/chat during the game.

[tornado]

Canada wins for the second time to go 2-0 in their pool play (they are NOT in the same pool as the US), and so Canada automatically advances to the Medal round of the Tournament.
Some people might recall Theo Davis, who committed briefly to Iowa State then backed out when Wayne Morgan was fired, and is now at Gonzaga, where he was suspended in Feb. for dope possession.........he's the 6-11 center of the Canadian team.

In each of the eight, 3-team pools, only the top two teams advance, so the final 16 teams will begin tournament play on Sunday for the medals.

The USA team, which is the UNI team plus their graduated seniors Grant Stout and Brooks McKowen, are presently 0-1, and play Angola on Friday.
They SHOULD win the game vs. Angola (which was annihilated 102-52 vs. Lithuania), which would make the US 1-1 in pool play and that would be good enough to advance since Angola is already 0-1, and they'd be the team from our pool to be eliminated.

[PTTB]

Panthers putting the clamps down on Angola. UNI up 65-16 at the end of the 3rd quarter. UNI has held Angola to 2/27 shooting from inside the arc, and 3/19 from 3.

[Da Coach]

Northern Iowa clobbered a team from Angola 84-26 to go to 1-1.

Here are the stats--

http://202.29.240.36/ENG/BK/BKR173A_BK040010200005ENG.htm

Story--

http://unipanthers.cstv.com/sports/m-baskbl/spec-rel/081007aaa.html

Their next 2 games are:
Sunday August 12: UNI vs. Turkey 3:45AM
Monday August 13: UNI vs. China 1:30AM