Thompson, Team USA 1 & 1

In their first game of the exhibition round (aka the round-robin Serbia International) the USA Basketball World University Games team had to come from behind to beat Team Canada. It took a great fourth quarter to do so, where Deon Thompson and company outscored their opponents 28 to 14, but in the end it was USA beating Canada by the final score of 85 to 81. From the article on the official site of UNC Athletics I find out that Thompson & Company was down by 16 points (in the first half), which is probably something that head coach Bo Ryan didn’t think would happen, at least not so early. As far as Thompson is concerned, he scored ten points and added a team high six rebounds. And while the box score tells us a story, the Tar Heel power forward gives another perspective to the game:

“I don’t think we ever panicked,” said Thompson. “I think that was just first game jitters. It was the first time we had actually seen new faces, been a different country; we flew all day on Thursday. It was our first game together, and I think in the first half, we just had to get those first game jitters out.”

I would say that this is a comment of someone who is pretty confident of both his skills and of his team mate’s. Of course, I would also think that no player is going to be down too much in the first game, but they have to now show up from the first second in this tournament if they want people to believe that this was just a bump in the road and not something that is going to happen over and over. Unfortunately that did not happen in game two of the round robin, as the team lost by double figures to Serbia, and this one was not close. Thompson had seven points in 18 minutes, while adding 3 rebounds and a block shot as USA went down 98 to 82. Today is the third game of this tourney and then come July 3rd it’s for real, as the squad will play first Finland and then South Korea in the opening round of the World University Games.

I have to say that with the experience gained by the Tar Heel from Torrance, CA. he should be leading this team and the fact that he is not playing more (just 18 minutes in the game against Serbia) is troubling to me. Over at the US Basketball web site there is the recap of the game. The one troubling stat is that the United States squad was outrebounded by double figures on the boards, and that is something that a team like this should not ever have happen.

Another theory about this lost could be the fact that Bo Ryan’s team thought they were going to come back on their opponents, just like they did in game one. Unfortunately for both players and coaching staff, that did not happen and now they have to settle in to the fact that if the US wants to be the team they can be they have to do it from minute one of the game and not after a while. With the next game coming up today we will see if this team can rebound or if it needs to go back to the drawing board for the real tournament that will begin later this week. The World University Games is held every other year. The `09 men’s basketball competition will feature 26 teams vying for the gold from July 2-11. Athletes for the USA team must be currently enrolled in a college or university and have remaining eligibility.