Hoops & Volleyball To Play For Gold

By Brendon Rosenau
Love of Sports Correspondent

Doug Collins put it best when he said the three year journey is down to the final 40 minutes.

The USA’s quest for redemption will come to a head Sunday morning (2:30 am EST) against Spain, a team they demolished in prelim play, and should do so again for the ultimate prize.

The U.S. moved into the finals with a 101-81 win over Argentina. They started the game fierce, leading 30-11 after the first quarter. The margin looked even more insurmountable after Manu Ginobili hobbled off the court with a foot injury. The U.S. then went up by as many as 21 before they got trigger happy from three and allowed the undermanned Argentines to make a run. Luis Scola (28 points, 12 rebounds) helped lead a 16-3 Argentina run that cut the once robust lead to six. Carmelo Anthony pushed the lead to nine at the break with three free throws with .09 seconds left.

Coach K laid into the NBA elite at the half and it paid off. The U.S. doubled their lead in the first five minutes of the third and managed a double-digit lead the rest of the night. Anthony led the way with 21 and was one of seven players in double figures. Chris Bosh had a double-double (11 points, 11 rebounds) and Dwight Howard was right behind that pace, with 10 and nine. The MVP of the game, though, had to be Jason Kidd.

Kidd finished with just two point, but he refocused the offense in the second half and provided the leadership the team was lacking. He handed out five of his seven assists in the third, getting the ball to Howard on the block twice and finding LeBron James for an easy two off an inbounds and once more for a wide open three.

Kidd also kept one possession alive with an offensive board and quickly defused a situation between Anthony and Francisco Oberto. The U.S. has done a good job thus far of staying away from too much trash talking and extracurricular activities, but as the importance of the games have increased, so has player’s emotions. Kidd’s presence will be paramount against Spain, a team that’s no stranger to gum flapping and an extra elbow here and there.

A couple things that deserve mentioning:

--Carmelo Anthony was 13-13 from the free throw line and Chris Bosh was 5-5.
--The U.S. took 31 three-pointers, which is too many considering the fact they had 68 shot attempts.
--Luis Scola’s an outstanding player who never stops playing. I’m anxious to see how much he’ll improve with the Rockets this year.
--Andres Nocioni was visibly limping, but managed to stuff Kobe Bryant once on a reverse dunk attempt.

Medal Count

The U.S. got seven more medals overnight and expanded their medal lead over China to 102-89. Day 15’s the biggest medal day of the Games, with 32 being awarded tonight and tomorrow. Twelve more will be decided on the final day of competition.

Jack of All Trades

Bryan Clay earned the 21st track medal for the Americans with a first place finish in the decathlon.
He won the first two events of the competition and never lost his stranglehold on the lead. He won the 100 meters (10.44) and followed that with the best long jump performance in the field (7.78 meters). He also finished first in the discus (53.79 meters) and was second in the shot put and the 110 hurdles. In one of his best events, he finished third in the javelin as well as the pole vault. By the time the last event came around, the 1,500 meters, he’d already locked up the gold. He had won the silver in Athens and won the world championships in both 2005 and 2007.

Golden Men

Phillip Dalhausser and Todd Rogers will never get the same attention as their female counterparts, but they may be just as good. They contributed to the gold sweep on the beach thanks to their 2-1 win over Marcio Arajuo and Fabio Luz of Brazil. The Americans took a back-and-forth opening game 23-21, but dropped the second 17-21. The medal came down to a 15-point rubber match in which Brazil never had a chance. Dalhausser’s block on the 10th point of the match put the Americans ahead 9-1 and had the Star Spangled Banner queued up and ready to play.

BMX, Boxing and Taekwondo

In the first year of BMX racing, the Americans rode away with half of the medals. Mike Day and Donny Robinson took silver and bronze in the men’s division while Jill Kintner grabbed bronze for the women. Day was just short (.416) of gold medal winner Maris Strombergs of Latvia while Robinson was .782 seconds off. The French took gold and silver for the women.

Steven Lopez (80kg) scored with a defensive kick in the final period to win bronze, becoming the third member of his family to win a medal in Beijing. Lopez beat Rashad Ahmadov of Azerbaijan 3-2 in a defensive struggle. He advanced to the finals with a 3-0 win over Sebastian Konan-N’quessan of the Ivory Coast. He scored all three of his points in the first period on defensive kicks.

Deontay Wilder shared the bronze in boxing’s heavyweight division after a 7-1 loss to Clemente Russo of Italy. Russo scored a point in the first round, which was the only point in the first two rounds. He was the more aggressive pugilist in the third and took a 4-0 lead. Wilder knew he was well behind on points, but couldn’t get close enough to Russo to amount any kind of serious offense in the last round. Wilder’s bronze is the only U.S. medal in boxing this entire Olympics.

Hyleas Fountain got an upgrade from bronze to silver in the heptathlon. Lyudmila Blonska of Ukraine was booted for testing positive for steroids, allowing Fountain to move up a spot. It’s the Ukrainian’s second positive drug test and will likely result in a lifetime ban.

Golden Opportunities

Volleyball: The men’s six-man team advanced to the gold medal game with a gritty 3-2 win over Russia. The U.S. took a commanding 2-0 lead before Russia stormed back to tie the match. The Russians won the third game (27-25), then evened the match with a three-point win. In the fifth and decisive game, the U.S. trailed 12-11. That’s when David Lee took over and single-handedly delivered a U.S. win.

Lee tied the game with an arm breaking spike, then gave the Americans the lead when he stuffed a hit from Alexander Volkov. At 13-13, Lee delivered a booming kill Volkov couldn’t handle. On match point, Lee scored the winner on his third block of the game. He finished the match with nine kills and six digs. William Priddy had 17 kills and 12 digs and Clayton Stanley served seven aces for the Americans. They’ll play Brazil, who advanced to the finals with a 3-1 winner over Italy.

Baseball: It’s bronze or bust for the U.S. It’s safe to say Beijing hasn’t been a pleasant experience for the team, which suffered a 10-2 defeat to Cuba in the semifinals. The U.S. will now face Japan and try to take something positive out of the games. The U.S. already beat Japan a few days ago 4-2.

Reminder, the women’s hoops team will be gunning for gold on Saturday morning at 10:00 am EST.

(Just two more days left of Olympic coverage. Stay tuned right here for all of Rosenau’s daily recaps.)