Team USA cruised to its third-straight gold medal with an easy 96-66 victory over Serbia in the gold medal game of the 2016 Rio Olympics. Following that win, the head of USA Basketball, Jerry Colangelo, had a few words for the rest of the international basketball community.
Colangelo went all sorts of Allen Iverson on the international basketball community with his simple message — step your game up.
“I’m all for raising the bar for global basketball,” Colangelo told reporters Sunday. “The more interest in basketball on all levels, I’m for. I’m a lifer in the game. I love the game. Basketball is the No. 2 sport in the world, [but] we just need to see these other countries get their acts together and become more competitive.”
While there’s little doubt that the gold medal game was not as competitive as many expected, Colangelo appears to have forgotten the earlier struggles of his own team in this tournament.
After all, this is a team that nearly was bounced in the semis, winning by just six points over Argentina. This team also had a pair of three-point victories over France and Serbia in pool play and were far from the dominant team that appeared in the gold medal game during most of the tournament.
That didn’t stop Colangelo from doubling down, even noting that an official said his team should be playing with four instead of five next time around.
“I’m not going to be making excuses for anyone about our [dominance],” Colangelo said. “Someone said to me [after the game], one of the officials said to me, ‘You know next time you play, you ought to play with four.’ And I said, ‘No, maybe the other teams better get their act together and compete.'”
Perhaps Colangelo should remember the tournament in its entirety before spouting off about the competitiveness of the international field again?
[ESPN]
