man on women's sports

Day 7 results ("Eight-Final Round - Game 3"): I didn't want to scare anybody, but the 2001 USA Basketball women's junior team, comprised of Diana Taurasi, Alana Beard, Cappie Poindexter, Monique Currie and others, took bronze to Eva Viteckova and the Czech Republic's gold. (Story) Today, it was tight, very tight in there (box score): tight defense (Czech Rep 29.5% field goal rate, USA 30.5%), tight post play (Czech Rep 32 defensive and 9 offensive rebounds, USA 31 and 9.) But while the Czechs turned the ball over 10 times more than did the US, the US bricked 9 of its 19 free throws. Okay, everybody let's stop here and catch our breaths . . ..

The USA team is absent Lisa Leslie and "Yo" Griffith and, effectively, Sheryl Swoopes, but is coached by Ann Donavan and Dawn Staley: that's 3 negatives to 15 positives. This USA team features phenoms galore (newbies or not), yet to this point has not been afflicted with the self-centrism turned complacency that proved to be Sacramento's undoing: "these but mere mortals on the floor with us . . .." Yea, who kicked 'dat buck! Let's pull it together and hold it on the real side, USA. Pictured left above, Tina Thompson versus Czech Republic's Zuzana Klimesova.

Spain beat Lithuania, but both advance nonetheless. Brazil beat Canada; Canada and Tammy Sutton-Brown are out (they were taking horrible pics of her anyway (goodness, that is such a no-brainer!)) Russia beat Cuba; Cuba is out. Australia (pictured right featuring Lauren Jackson (toweled) and Tully Bevilaqua) beat Argentina; Argentina is out. The People's Republic of China beat France; but, France is in and the People's Republic of China goes to the classification round (go figure.)

Photo sources (in order) Yahoo! News/AP Photo/ Andre Penner; Yahoo! News/AP Photo/Marcelo Hernandez

# posted by wonderbot @ 9:14 PM