Saturday, August 23, 2008

Live Olympics on the West Coast? I Must Be Dreaming

For what I think is the very first time in this Olympics, the West Coast is seeing an event live - the men's basketball final.

Right now, the game is in the second quarter, and the "Redeem Team" is putting a little space between themselves and Spain. The refs aren't letting them play very much, and Spain looks like they're starting to lose their cool a little bit. Of course, just as I type that the U.S. has missed a couple of long threes, and Spain has a chance to bring it down under 10 with about 7 minutes to play in the second quarter.

Unlike a lot of people, I don't have a huge problem with the U.S. sending their professionals to the Olympics, especially now that the rest of the world has pretty much caught up - at least to the point where they can beat us consistently in international tournaments, if all we do is show up and expect the gold to be handed to us on a platter. Given the amount of time and effort that has gone into trying to win a gold medal this year, it will be interesting to see if the will is there to keep doing it this way at every Olympiad. I've heard that Coach K has already indicated this will be it for him, and if that is the case we'll just have to see if there is another coach with the time and the temperament to be able to mold a group of disparate players who are pretty used to having their own way on their own teams into something resembling a team.

With 5:11 to play in the first, the U.S. leads 52-42. And the clock has just struck midnight here in California.

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