// Mike Krzyzewski has won 927 college basketball games, made 11 Final Fours, won four NCAA Championships and earned an Olympic gold medal since landing his first head coaching gig at Army in 1975. In those 37 years, he’d never sat courtside for anything this ludicrous. “Well, obviously, we just shot better than any team in a game that I have ever coached,” Kryzewski said after Team USA’s 156-73 dismantling of Nigeria. When the buzzer sounded, finally and mercifully, Team USA had
I am going to give you a Team USA gold-or-not prediction in this column, and I promise you a prediction that goes against the grain. That’s all I’ll say about that … for now. First, I’ll hand over the podium and relay a quote that could be the defining declaration concerning the London Olympics: “Let’s no longer beat about the bush. This summer’s Olympics Games are going to be a catalog of disasters. Not everything that can go wrong will go wrong.
Andrei Kirilenko is going to be visible to Americans this summer — even if it’s looking more and more likely he is headed back to Russia for another season with CSKA Moscow. (He has until July 12 to opt out of his contract), Kirilenko and the Russian national team qualified for the London Olympics on Saturday night in Caracas, Venezuela, by defeating Nigeria 85-77 behind 19 points, eight rebounds, four assists and three steals by Kirilenko. The Russians went undefeated in
The Greeks are out, Bo McCalebb is out, J.J. Barea and Carlos Arroyo are out, and there won’t be any Angolans to elbow around at the 2012 Olympic men’s basketball tournament. On a day of wild swings and finishes at the quarterfinals of the Olympic qualifying tournament in Caracas, Venezuela, the field of Olympic contenders was reduced to four — Russia, the Dominican Republic, Nigeria and Lithuania. Two spots will be determined in today’s semifinals, with both of those teams going into
Kostas Papanikolau of Greece, the 2nd-round draft pick of the New York Knicks in 2012 Olympic basketball begins today … sort of. And all those New York Knicks fans who are wondering about their new draft pick, Kostas Papanikolau, will likely get a chance to see him later this summer against Team USA. Greece is one of the favorites in the FIBA Olympic Qualifying Tournament that begins today in Venezuela, and there are more familiar faces for NBA fans
BARCELONA — Next season, the Euroleague’s Top 16 phase will have two groups of eight instead of four groups of four. Keeping in line with the home-and-home format, that means each team will play 14 games instead of six. Some people are digging the switch. An additional eight games mean more Milos Teodosic sleepy-eyed step backs, a blitzkrieg of bombas from Juan Carlos Navarro and, God willing, more of Petr Samoylenko’s fantastic mullet. Others are less pumped. Having eight more games could
From euroleague.net
By Chris Sheridan KAUNAS, Lithuania — You never quite know what will come out of David Blatt’s mouth, but it is always interesting, often controversial (such as what he said last summer about the Soviet Union rightfully winning the 1972 gold medal game against the United States at the Munich Olympics in 1972), and sometimes right on point. Emphasis on sometimes. Two examples from his post-game comments after Thursday night’s 77-67 victory over Serbia put Blatt’s Russian team into the semifinals of EuroBasket. _ “Viktor Khryapa was