Team USA managed to get a very disappointing fifth place at the Pan Am Games in Rio de Janeiro. The American squad, made up of college hoops stars, was leas by D.J. White of Illinois, who averaged over 16 points per game. The US team was outmatched by the competition, as their relative inexperience in international basketball showed with their unwillingness to match the physicality of the rest of the teams.
This is definitely not a good sign for the future of US hoops. Of course, we were playing college hoops stars against their best professionals. But that shouldn’t count as an excuse. Not in my book. It seems to me that America ought to come up with something better, purely based on population totals. This kind of constant embarrassment on the international scene is getting pretty tiresome. Perhaps our standards are too high, or perhaps we are in a bit of a slump basketball-wise, but struggling at basketball shouldn’t be a problem. We can get back on top of the international basketball world, but we perhaps have to dedicate more energy to it.
If you would like to see these Pan Am players in action against college competition, all you have to do is go to StubHub.com to get some NCAA basketball tickets.
