[PEN-L:30086] U.S. Eliminated From B-Ball World Championships

[Michael Pollak <mpollak@xxxxxxxxx>]

[The loss against Argentina was just a first round loss.  This is for
keeps]

New York Times
September 6, 2002

U.S. Eliminated From World Championships

   By HARVEY ARATON

   I NDIANAPOLIS, Sept. 5 Already stripped of its unblemished record and
   even its home-court flavor, the United States proceeded to surrender
   all hope for a medal at the world basketball championships tonight
   when it blew a 10-point lead in the fourth quarter and was ousted by
   the defending champion, Yugoslavia, in the quarterfinals, 81-78.

   It felt as if Conseco Fieldhouse had been turned into Little Belgrade
   as a sizable band of Yugoslav fans easily outcheered, if not
   outnumbered, another sparse crowd of Americans, who watched the
   professionals from the N.B.A. lose for the second time in two nights
   in international competition after 58 straight victories.

   "It was like we were playing at home," said the Yugoslav coach,
   Svetislav Pesic.

   Digging in for an effort that was as blue in the collar as their
   sleeveless team jerseys, the Americans built a 69-59 lead behind Paul
   Pierce and Andre Miller, only to have Yugoslavia go on an 18-4 run
   that was capped by a dagger of a 3-pointer from the right wing by
   Milan Gurovic. That gave Yugoslavia a 77-73 lead, and after Miller's
   3-pointer cut it to a point, guard Marko Jaric made four free throws
   to seal the victory.

   "It was an N.B.A. playoff game in the summer," said the crestfallen
   United States coach, George Karl, whose Milwaukee Bucks failed to make
   the playoffs last spring.

   Bedlam was set off in the Yugoslav rooting sections and on the court
   as Miller misfired a 3-point attempt as time expired. It was the first
   time that an American team failed to earn a medal at the world
   championships since 1978, when the tournament was played in October
   and the United States sent the barnstorming amateur team Athletes in
   Action.

   Yugoslavia will play New Zealand, which upset Puerto Rico, 65-63, in
   the semifinals tonight. Argentina, which beat the United States on
   Wednesday night, eliminated Brazil, 78-67, and will next play Germany,
   which ousted Spain, 70-62.

   The United States team, led tonight by Pierce and Miller with 19
   points each, was consigned to the consolation round Friday night
   against Puerto Rico, a development Miller called embarrassing.

   If Wednesday marked the end of the American dominance, tonight was the
   official beginning of the new world order, the first time since the
   N.B.A. unleashed its dunk-and-pony show in the international arena in
   1992 that one could argue there was no more order at all. Anybody
   could win, and the United States could obviously lose.

   "The game isn't ours now, it's everybody's," said Mike D'Antoni, an
   assistant coach for the Phoenix Suns who last season coached Italy's
   Benetton Treviso's Euro League champions and is familiar with most of
   the foreign players here.

   That the Americans' 58-game winning streak was finally over was less
   the shock than the way they were vanquished Wednesday by Argentina:
   nearly beginning to end and in every measurable aspect of play.

   Before the United States team even had the opportunity to redeem
   itself tonight, the focus around the arena was more on who was not
   wearing the United States uniforms than who was and who would have to
   be in them for 2004 Olympics for the Americans to win.

   Few would argue that Shaquille O'Neal, who played for the United
   States in 1994 and 1996, would change the dynamic and outcome of any
   tournament, but in two years he will be 32, with chronic big toe pain
   and most likely coming off another playoff run deep into June.

   Tim Duncan would certainly give the United States a much improved post
   presence from what it has here, but those who believe that more elite
   personnel will be the American panacea might reflect back on Sydney
   before looking ahead to Athens.

   The 2000 United States Olympic team, while playing without O'Neal, did
   have a roster laden with so-called franchise players: Kevin Garnett,
   Vince Carter, Jason Kidd, Gary Payton, Alonzo Mourning, Antonio
   McDyess. They flew home under critical assault for surviving a
   Lithuanian 3-pointer at the buzzer that would have beaten them had it
   been good and for being unable to shake France in the gold medal game.

   For Karl and his players, burdened now by unwelcome historical
   distinction, the first N.B.A. team to lose and not earn a medal, all
   that mattered was the chance to prove that Wednesday was a false step,
   if not a fluke. After more or less guaranteeing earlier in the week
   that some future team would be the one to lose, Baron Davis said,
   "We'll be back to win the gold medal."

   Yugoslavia had its own medal plan and such a desire to finally defeat
   the N.B.A. entry that Vlade Divac claimed to have given up smoking
   until Sunday. Having lost twice early in the tournament before
   reaching the single-elimination round, Divac, Peja Stojakovic, who led
   Yugoslavia tonight with 20 points, and their teammates wound up
   meeting the United States sooner than they would have preferred. But
   they were ready, running out to a 9-0 lead as their raucous fans
   roared.

   Desperate for veteran poise and leadership, Karl started Reggie
   Miller, the 38-year-old hometown Pacer, and it was Miller's pair of
   3-pointers that cut into the early deficit, got the United States on
   its defensive toes and into a better state of mind. The score was tied
   at 20-20 by the end of the first quarter, but the game would get away
   in the last six minutes, leaving the United States two long years to
   determine a strategy to reintroduce itself as a world basketball
   power.

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