I decided to watch the game today. Normally, I like the international game, because they don’t call a foul every time someone falls on the ground. They allow a little more contact, and the game flows better. The first quarter went by pretty smoothly. Then in the second quarter, Andres Nocioni (currently playing for the Chicago Bulls) started complaining to the refs about some no calls. Rather than being consistent and continuing to ref the game in the manaer in which they have been, the refs started calling ticky-tack fouls. This of course slowed the game down to a crawl, and made it much less enjoyable.
Naturally, this hurt the Argentina team much more than the US team, as the US team was able to afford more fouls, due to it’s depth. Team Argentina did benefit from this increased sensitivity to contact, as they were able to get back in the game, being sent to the foul line over, and over again.
On a separate subject, the US team, once again, exhibited it’s inability to adjust to a change in the game. As soon as Argentina started playing zone defense, team USA was unable to score, turned the ball over repeatedly, and seemed to get flustered. Coach K sat on the bench, refusing to call a time out and pehapse change the offense a bit. Suprisingly, he did not play Carlos Boozer until late in the game, even though the US big men were being dominated by Argentina’s bigs. Boozer has been a top power forward for a few years now, and I can’t believe his old Duke coach, didn’t give him more than about 5 minutes playing time.
