Years of hints that the U.S. Olympic men's team was nearing the end of its international basketball reign turned into a loud slap in the face Tuesday, 12 days before the U.S. will take to the court in the suddenly unpredictable Athens tournament.
Team USA's 95-78 loss at Cologne, Germany, to an Italian team devoid of NBA stars was its first loss in an exhibition game in which it used professional players. Late on defense, guilty of 23 turnovers and so uncoordinated offensively that they produced a mere 15 assists, the U.S. players were overwhelmed by a fundamentally sound Italian team that moved the ball well, shot well, and penetrated at will.
The U.S. team's first game at Athens is Aug. 15 against Puerto Rico. It will then play each of the other teams in Group B -- Angola, Australia, Greece and Lithuania -- to determine which four will advance to the quarterfinals.
"They're going to be in for a lot of lessons the next two weeks," Coach Larry Brown said of his players, whose average age of 23.6 is the youngest since NBA stars began competing in the Olympics in 1992. "They learned that there are great players around the world and great coaches around the world....
"We're going to have to grow up very quickly."
Brown's team faces Germany -- led by Dallas Maverick center-forward Dirk Nowitzki -- today at Cologne (11 a.m., ESPN) before completing pre-Olympic play against Serbia and Montenegro at Belgrade on Friday, and against Turkey on Sunday and Tuesday at Istanbul. The U.S. team began exhibition play Saturday with a 96-71 rout of Puerto Rico, despite Brown's decision to bench Allen Iverson, LeBron James and Amare Stoudemire as punishment for having arrived late to a team meeting.
"This was a shellacking, an embarrassing moment for USA Basketball," ESPN commentator Bill Walton said after Tuesday's game. "The U.S. [has] a lot of work ahead."
The U.S. is 24-0 at the Olympics since 1992 and has won three gold medals, but its margins of victory have shrunk and it has encountered more close calls. The Sydney team trailed Lithuania, 81-80, in the waning seconds of their semifinal game and was spared a loss only when Sarunas Jasikevicius missed a three-point shot as time ran out. In the gold-medal game, the Americans led France by only 76-72 with 4:26 to play before regaining their composure and winning, 85-75.
