Pan American Games basketball



  • @JayHawkFanToo keep me posted on score, gotta go. Dang! No Keith at all 2 nd half! Bummer



  • Overtime…and I am posting to myself… 😞



  • No rebounding whatsoever for team USA, I am surprised they are even in this game.



  • Murray is got to be the luckiest player, he just made to highly improbably baskets in the last few seconds to put Canada up by 4 with 1 minute left…







  • @Crimsonorblue22

    Murray played great, Canada won, and the USA team plays for the Bronze tomorrow. 😞 😞 😞



  • Dubious USA coaching. Shoulda let Baker run PG, put SuperK in da game, man!



  • @ralster 17 pts sitting the bench!



  • @JayHawkFanToo Murray for real, make him go right!



  • @Crimsonorblue22

    Murray is the real deal and the US had no answer for him. I believe he had 22 points, all of them in the 4th quarter…I bet the squid was drooling…

    Hard to believe that a “money” player like Langford played only 7 minutes at the start of the game and sat the rest. I like Few and he would be in my short list of coaches to replace Self someday, but the coaching decisions today were…to be kind…questionable???



  • @JayHawkFanToo x that choice right now!!!



  • Evidently, Langford injured an ankle early in this Canadian contest. That might explain his no show after halftime. Interesting that with all the experienced talent, Baker looked so good for USA going down the stretch. If VanFleet would have been available for final 5 minutes, I warrant that USA would have pulled out a victory. If Bill Self watched the closing minutes of this contest, he must have ground his molars to chalkdust!



  • @REHawk agree about self, not sure about Fred. He’s so small.



  • A few post game comments:

    I don’t know who had the final decision on the player selection but this team did not have the right players and no chemistry… It has been proven time and time again that teams composed of players that do not play together regularly do not develop a a cohesive team; VanVleet should have been left in the team with Baker as they were the closest thing to having a back court that could play together. I wonder how much of a role “sports politics” played in the player selection.

    Brown is ball hog and volume shooter. Yes he had 25 point but that was from shooting 8 of 20 and 2 of 9 form 3; in comparison Baker was a very efficient 5 of 7 and 1 of 2 from 3 for 15 points. Whoever thinks that Melo Trimble makes Maryland a contender is dreaming; he did not do a think to prove that he is anything other than an average player.

    Rebounding was non existent. Team USA was outrebounded 50 to 29 and had only 9 offensive rebound compared to Canada’s 17; Randolph (who played well) had 6 rebounds and no other player had more than 3. As I posted before, I am glad Tarczewski did not come to KU; can’t score, can’t rebound, can’t guard even shorter players…and had measly 2 rebounds and 7 point in 25 minutes of play Obviously we had no inside game and one has to wonder why Rico Suave was left of the team; he would have helped big time.

    Obviously I have no information on who selected the 20 players that were invited to the initial camp and who made the decision on the final 12; if Few was the primary person in charge, the he bears the brunt of the responsibility, if not then the entire process needs to be reviewed and maybe like the the WUG team, the Pan Am team should be based on one school…we know it worked well in the WUG.

    On a related note and since it will affect KU down the road, Jamal Murray is the real deal and I bet the squid has a smile from ear to ear today. Even the announcers kept saying that he mostly drives to his left and yet no attempt was made to force him to go to his right (as @Crimsonorblue22 mentioned)…either bad scouting, bad coaching or both.



  • @JayHawkFanToo

    Yes… it was so bad I almost started rooting for Canada. Imagine the fool that cut VanVleet and kept Brown? Guess they thought, “wow… all those points in China league!”

    Someone read players’ stats and thought they could build a “team” like that.

    I thought Baker’s play was interesting. He barely took a shot before the end of yesterday’s game (through the entire tournament), because he is used to playing on a team that ran offense… versus what they ran in the tournament… every man for himself, if you want to shoot then create your own shot.

    It looked like our guys weren’t even coached. We could have had these results without coaching. Just throw 5 guys out there and when one gets tired he could signal to the bench for someone to come in and take his spot.

    Even had we won, their play was embarrassing. I’m thinking guys like Baker and Langford are thinking right now… “what did I get myself into?” This wasn’t an experience where anyone developed. This wasn’t a resume builder. A complete waste of time.

    How many assists did we have in this game? Yeah, right… every man for himself! A few times I almost turned the TV off when Brown brought the ball up and instantly gunned a 35-ft brick, not even a single pass, and 16 seconds left on the shot clock and no one in position for a rebound. Why our rebounding stunk? Yeah… that was a big reason why. Brown wouldn’t get selected for a team at the Y during lunch ball. How did they find that guy?

    This was, and is, a disaster.



  • So did anyone at all in the media say “hm, looks like we sent better coaching to the WUG”? Thought not…



  • By the way…team USA comes back from way behind in the fourth quarter and outscores Dominican Republic 28-14 to win 87-82 for the Bronze Medal. Look like they stunk up the place for 3 quarters. Langford and Randolph, perhaps the best two players on the team, did not play at all…they both play professionally in Russia.



  • @ParisHawk

    Few has some 'splainin to do and this stint will not enhance his reputation. Fortunately for him, our society seem to have a very short memory.



  • Few got EXPOSED!



  • @ralster

    Interesting comments from Fran Fraschilla about WSU’s Ron Baker…

    “If he’s not first- or second-team All-American, I don’t know basketball,” Fraschilla said Sunday after providing analysis in Toronto for ESPN’s broadcasts. “He was impressive. The competition level is higher than the NCAA. It’s a very physical brand of basketball. That Brazil team would have beaten our NCAA champion by 30 points.”

    As far as the competition being so much better that Brazil would have beaten the NCAA Champion by 30 points…it is just plain BS. Brazil looked good because the US team sucked. Let’s faced, an 18 tear old Canadian beat the the US team and Canada out rebounded the US team by an almost a 2-1 margin; the US team had to outscore Dominican Republic 28-14 in the fourth quarter to barely win by 5…we are talking the Dominican Republic Team…embarrassing. Didn’t Fraschilla post a couple of week ago the WUG was inferior competition? What is it with him lately and his dislike for KU?



  • @JayHawkFanToo Fran sucks, he’s a butt-kisser. He only says good things about KU when he’s called out. I dread him and mushberger calling our games!



  • @Crimsonorblue22 Fran was pretty unbiased before his kid went to Oklahoma. He’s still good at talking about international prospects as well. I’d still rather listen to Fraschilla today than Bobby Knight any day at this point. Musberger needs to stay with Big 10 football because his announce style sucks for basketball. Jay Bias and Dan Schulman is their best combo.

    @JayHawkFanToo I partially disagree with the WUG having the better competition. Canada and Brazil both had professional players and American based college players on their Pan-American rosters unlike their WUG rosters. Outside of the Canada, Brazil, and maybe the US, the WUG competition looked better than the Pan-American competition.



  • @Texas-Hawk-10

    I agree, Fraschilla used to be pretty good about KU but he has changed. I do like Knight though 😞



  • Until 4 or 5 years ago I enjoyed Fran’s work in announcing Kansas games. He seems to have changed disposition toward Bill Self and KU Hoops recently. Does he feel, perhaps, that our coaches gave his kid short shrift on the recruiting trail?



  • @Texas-Hawk-10

    I did not see the part about the competition before. My point was that Fraschilla went out of his way to downplay the competition at the WUG and I believe he called inferior and yet he went on to heap praise on Baker from WSU (not that he did nor deserve the praise) and the Pan American teams…kind of makes you go hmmmm .

    Yes, couple of teams at the Pan American games were good, but they looked better because the others were so mediocre. I watched just about every game that was broadcasted for both tournaments and they were only 8 teams at the Pan American Games with Brazil, Canada and USA clearly on different level than the other 5 who were at best at the level of Chile or Switzerland at the WUG. At the WUG , there were 23 teams and at least 10 were quality teams and the top 5-6 teams would certainly top 20 in the NCAA. Would Brazil beat the NCAA Champion by 30 points? I don’t think so, I am not sure they would even beat them let alone by 30 points.

    I don’t get why Fraschilla was so intent on dismissing the WUGg and building up the Pan American Games…of course, he worked as an analyst for ESPN at the Pan American games.

    P.S. Fraschilla, worked at Curry’s camp in his role as the director of summer basketball for Under Armour…a veiled low blow to Adidas?


Log in to reply