Thursday, July 17, 2008

U18 USA Men Defeat Canada -- Go For Gold Against Argentina

The U18 USA Men's defeated the Canadian team 82-66 today in Formosa, Argentina to advance to the gold medal game against host country Argentina. JayMychal Green hit a 2 pointer with 9:36 left in the first period to give the USA a 2-0 lead, and the Americans never looked back. They built a 10 point lead in the first period, and added to it in each of the succeeding 3 periods, and finished the game with a 16 point margin of victory. The Canadians suffered their second straight loss in days, and will face the U18 Puerto Rican team, losers to host Argentina 83-68, in the third place game tomorrow at 7:00pm.

JayMychal Green went to score 14 more points to become the high scorer for the game on 7-9 (0-0, 7-9), 0-0 shooting. Green also pulled down 10 rebounds (7-3) and had 2 blocks and a steal.

Villanova's own Maalik Wayns played nearly 16 minutes, scoring 7 points on 3-9 (0-1, 3-8), 1-1 shooting. Wayns snagged 4 rebounds, dished 1 assist and grabbed 2 steals to go with this points. Connecticut's Kemba Walker played 35.5 minutes scoring 13 points on 6-11 (1-3, 5-8) 0-1 shooting. Walker had 8 assists to 6 turnovers. St. Anthony's Dominic Cheek played nearly 6 minutes scoring 5 points on 2-5 (1-4, 1-1) 0-0 shooting. The complete boxscore, along with play-by-play and shot chart are available at the FIBA site.

The USA's opponent in the gold medal game tomorrow at 9:00pm will be host Argentina. The Argentines earned passage to the gold medal game by winning the Bracket A round robin 3-0 and then defeated Bracket B runner up Puerto Rico 83-68.

The USA Basketball site has posted a story, "USA...Advances to Gold Game". Those interested in Maalike Wayns will find another mini-interview (along with Coach Bob McKillop, teammates JayMychal Green, Travis Releford and Travis Wear) enjoyable. He is quite a competitor. The team sounds "ready" for Argentina tonight.

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