Team USA: The Blue-White Scrimmage

Anybody else watching this scrimmage (ESPN3, probably also on TV) ? Team USA Basketball is trying to cut down from 19 players to 15 before going to training camp.

Important players on the bubble include Eric Gordon, OJ Mayo, Rudy Gay, Andre Iguodala, and Brook Lopez.
Derrick Rose has been playing heavy minutes for the White team, where he is joined by Kevin Durant, Steph Curry, Tyson Chandler, and others.

It's definitely a youth movement on the new Team USA - this is not exactly a "Dream Team" - but Chauncey Billups and Lamar Odom are notable veterans.

Updates and conclusions at the half.

POSTGAME REACTIONS:

Well, our guy from the Chi played some very impressive basketball, as his White team won 114 - 96 behind 28 points from Durant, the undisputed star of Team USA.



Rose played over 30 minutes, the most of anybody on his team, and scored 15 points on an array of highlight-reel layups, fastbreaks, and even a pretty three point bucket. But that's not all he did. He also looked ready and willing to play the point and embrace his role.

His eight assists were tops in the game (Rajon Rondo had six for Blue), while his five steals also led all players. Oh, and he didn't turn the ball over once. For comparison's sake, Durant and Rudy Gay had seven TOs each.



Rose made a strong case to be the starter for the US at point guard going forward, a position previously assumed to belong to Chauncey Billups. The Nuggets' floor general was just 2-for-10 tonight in 21 minutes and looked more comfortable shouting instructions from the bench than actually playing.

In a loaded backcourt which also includes budding stars Stephen Curry, Russell Westbrook, and Rondo, D-Rose looked like the class of the organization tonight.

Others who played impressively included Durant, Tyson Chandler, and Andre Iguodala for the White team, and Kevin Love and JaVale McGee for the Blue side. I know. JaVale McGee? Well, he looked ready to hustle and has some great low post moves.

Can't wait to watch the WBCs in Turkey this year.

TEAM AMERICA! F*%$ Yeah!

I didn’t want to post this yesterday in case any readers (all 3 of you) had recorded the game and wanted to watch it without spoilers.

As I have stated many times, I am a casual soccer fan, I only watch a little bit of the Chicago Fire because they are the local team, and I try to catch the finals of the premier league, UEFA Cup, etc. What I enjoy most about soccer is National Teams.

So I’ve been trying to watch as much of the confederation cup I can with the odd time zones. I missed the first American game, which was probably a good thing because they played terrible in the 2nd half vs Italy. I turned on the second game, and saw it was already 2-0 Brazil, so didn’t watch most of that. The final game of the round robin stage vs Egypt I didn’t watch because it was so improbable for America to make it to the elimination round. They had to beat Egypt by 3 and Brazil had to beat Italy by 3. I don’t know how many of you watch soccer, but 3 goals is a lot for a game, especially for an American team that had yet to score one that wasn’t on a penalty kick. Also, Egypt had played very well against both Italy and Brazil that I wasn’t even sure if USA would win. Well lo and behold as I went to bed that night I flipped on SportsCenter to hear their coverage of the US Open Championship. They led with the intro with a great line from Dumb and Dumber, “So your saying there’s a chance!” (which was also apparently a rally cry for Team America). They laid out the scenario that I just did, and to my utter amazement, everything worked out perfectly for the Americans. Italy was trying everything to put just 1 goal on the board but was continually thwarted by the Brazilians.

After the dramatic finish to squeak into the semi finals I heard the great news of who they were playing. Spain. #1 Ranked team in the world and reigning Euro Cup Champion (Like the World Cup, but just for Europe). Team America had only 1 win against world #1 ranked teams ever. So again the game didn’t look to promising. I was joking with a buddy before the game started that I expected the score to be 3-0 Spain with a 12-4 shots on goal advantage to Spain, basically saying Spain would dominate the game. It was a 1:20 start yesterday and I was at work, so I couldn’t watch, I didn’t even watch on gamecast on ESPN.com. I got back from a meeting expecting the game to be over, and USA blown out, when I ask my buddy, how’d our boys do? He said it was 1-0…..no now 2-0 America, we just scored again. HOLY CRAP! TEAM USA did it again.

So, to do my part to help team USA, I’m going to predict here, that Brazil or South Africa is going to make quick work of America and I will not be watching this Sunday, because the game won’t matter we won’t be in it anyways.

TEAM AMERICA! F*%$ Yeah!