Looks like VUhoops.com is first to press with the story, but it is worth repeating...
The U18 USA team easily beat Puerto Rico 106-64 to win the Group B bracket tonight. The medal rounds begin tomorrow (Thursday) with the Americans having earned the high seed, facing the loser of the Argentina-Canada game tonight. The American team again started slowly, ceding the first quarter to the Puerto Ricans 20-16. Led by Connecticut-bound Kemba Walker (who went on the score 15 points, leading along with Americans Malcolm Lee and Matt Humphrey, all scorers) the Americans pushed back in the second quarter to go into the locker room at half-time with a 44-36 lead. They continued to build on their lead through the third quarter, running out to a 30 point lead in the first 2 minutes of the fourth quarter. The FIBA site published a story, "United States beats Puerto Rico to win Group B:", the USA Basketball site has a box score available.
The margin of victory is a surprise. The Puerto Rican team beat the Bahamamian team by 32 points and followed by beating the Venezuelan team by 18 (USA margin of victory was 9).
Villanova's own Maalik Wayns scored 8 points on a 4-9 (0-3), 0-0 shooting night. Maalik grabbed 5 rebounds, dished 7 assists, blocked 2 shots(!), picked a pocket and turned it over 3 times in 21 minutes of play. Dominic Cheek also scored 8 points on 15 minutes of play. Dom, a 2 guard the Nova Nation has followed with great interest over the past 2+ years was 2-6 from the 3 point line and 2-4 from the charity stripe, while grabbing 3 rebounds.
2 comments:
Argentina beat Canada yesterday, so it looks like it will be USA vs. Canada and Argentina vs. Puerto Rico in the semifinals.
Here's Canada's results so far:
1) Beat Mexico by 13 (Mexico went 0-3, losing by an average of 21 points)
2) Beat Uruguay by 20 (Uruguay went 1-2, their only win coming against Mexico)
3) Lost to Argentina by 10 (Argentina went 3-0, totally dominating Mexico and Uruguay but getting a decent game from Canada)
I am pulling together some possession-based stats to see if I can get a sense of the medal round games. By the results so far the USA team appears to be the top of the class in Formosa. I was surprised at the men's margin of victory against Puerto Rico (much larger than expected). Remember however, that the men's U21 team was rolling through their FIBA tournament in the summer of 2006 (also in Argentina if I recall rightly) when they met Canada in the second (of 2) preliminary pools. They lost that game and could finish no higher than 5th. Allan Ray was a member of that Phil Martelli (yes that Phil Martelli) coached team. That's why they play the games...
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