FIBA Basketball & Free Comments • Baloncesto FIBA & Comentarios LibresNigeria crash Olympic party
The madness in basketball is normally reserved for the month of March, when the NCAA Tournament is played in the United States.
There are Davids and Goliaths and upsets galore.
This month's FIBA Olympic Qualifying Tournament (OQT) in Caracas proved to be just as crazy.
John Calipari, just a few months removed from leading the Kentucky Wildcats to the NCAA title, would probably agree.
Coach Cal guided the Dominican Republic at the OQT in Caracas and came up one win short of a spot in the London Games.
After his team's 95-85 victory over Korea on 3 July, a game in which Korea's frenetic and disruptive perimeter play caused many a difficult moment for the Dominicans, I said to Calipari: "Nothing comes easy in international basketball."
He smiled and answered: "What am I doing here?"
Calipari was in Caracas to try and lead the Dominican Republic to London.
A loss on the last night to Nigeria, 88-73, put paid to the Dominican hopes.
Nigeria, instead, joined Russia and Lithuania at the London Games.
You had to be in the Poliedro Arena to believe what happened over several days of great tournament basketball.
It's fitting to have the Nigerians' dancing on the court as the enduring image of the OQT.
A local church with a Nigerian pastor brought his entire flock to the Poliedro for all of Nigeria's games, and they turned the place into a little Lagos with their drums, their dancing and their singing.
The Dominican fans also had cowbells and drums, while those familiar with the great national teams of Lithuania and Greece will also know that their travelling fans are devoted, loud and very committed to the banging of drums, too.
In Venezuela, there was a little bit of something to interest everyone.
There was a lot of salsa going on in the stands during their two games.
On the court, Venezuela's Greivis Vasquez was a one-man attraction.
While he takes a lot of shots and draws a lot of attention to himself, he is not a selfish player at all.
His play in Caracas begs the question, "Why, in the name of Elvis, did Memphis trade Greivis Vasquez to the New Orleans Hornets?"
Vasquez is trying to take Venezuelan basketball to the top in South America, and he's doing a good job.
The dynamic, flamboyant one, he who thrilled in the open floor and rained three-pointers on Nigeria and Lithuania, wasn't able to carry Venezuela into the Quarter-Finals, but as he aptly put it before the start of the OQT, Venezuelan basketball has grown more in the past year than it had in the previous 20.
Vasquez had a front seat for one of the most controversial decisions of the OQT.
Lithuania coach Kestutis Kemzura, with his team on top of Venezuela by 18 with just four seconds remaining, decided to call a timeout and draw up a play to get more points.
The intention was to improve the team's goal (or points) differential in case of a three-way tie, to make sure that Lithuania would advance to the Quarter-Finals.
Vasquez, Venezuela coach Eric Musselman and all of Venezuela felt Kemzura was trying to pile on the misery.
If Kemzura had any Venezuelan friends left after that victory, he sure didn't by the end of Lithuania's game the following night against Nigeria.
The Africans led Lithuania by six points and Kemzura, secure in the knowledge that Lithuania could see out the last 30 seconds and finish first in Group B with the 86-80 defeat, decided not to try and win the game and that sealed the fate of Venezuela.
With all three teams winning one of two games, Kemzura and Co came in first, Nigeria second and hosts Venezuela third.
Venezuela crashed out of the tournament.
Before their Quarter-Final clash two nights later against Puerto Rico, the Venezuelans booed Lithuania non-stop while the Baltic team's national anthem was played.
Kemzura and Lithuania understand the cold, hard truth about international basketball, that in group play, points differential is often called into play to snap three-way ties.
The Lithuanians made no apologies about the timeout.
For the neutral observer, though, Kemzura's timeout lacked decency and perhaps common sense.
The Venezuela fire was raging with their team on the end of a heavy defeat.
Calling timeout with four seconds to go was like pouring gasoline on the blaze.
Musselman was so incensed that he refused to hold a joint press conference with Kemzura.
The saddest event of all at the OQT came in the aftermath of the Greeks' 80-79 defeat to Nigeria in the Quarter-Finals.
Greece were stunned and disappointed.
Of course they were. Their bid to play at a third straight Olympics had disappeared.
Greece coach Elias Zouros could have taken the high road and congratulated the Africans.
He could have pointed out that Nigeria hit a series of clutch shots in the fourth quarter, or recognized that the national team had given an entire continent its greatest moment in international basketball history.
He could have mentioned the name Ade Dagunduro, the architect of his team's demise, and maybe wished Nigeria luck in its remaining games.
Instead, the coach who's heard nothing but praise for most of his career, a former Eurocup Coach of the Year, railed against the referees and said his players had been robbed.
It was uncomfortable listening to a man in his position be so ungracious in defeat.
Zouros wasn't the first coach to adopt a negative tone in a press conference, and he won't be the last.
My only advice to him is to spend some extra time in practice coaching the art of free-throw shooting because Greece's 17-of-28 showing at the line was horrendous and costly.
Maybe Zouros can volunteer and do a coaching clinic in Nigeria at some point in his career.
Maybe then he'd appreciate the challenges that that country faces to be successful in sports.
The other point worth raising is the sniping from those who say Nigeria's players are all Americans.
Nigeria have players of Nigerian extraction who grew up in the United States, just as Greece have Nick Calathes, Kostas Koufos, Michail Bramos, etc.
The best Nigerian of all, Hakeem Olajuwon, played for the United States.
You win some, you lose some.
Nigeria weren't good enough to beat Russia in the Semi-Finals, losing 85-77, but they did have enough in the tank to beat the Dominicans and that led to the players charging into the stands to hug and embrace and dance with the members of the congregation that they did not know, but grew to love.
The Nigerian coach, Ayo Bakare, went into the middle of the floor and danced like he'd won a gold medal after the win over the Dominican Republic.
Not many people gave Nigeria a chance of winning one of the three places to the London Games before the OQT, myself included.
Now that they've made it, who knows?
Russia and Lithuania, as expected, did make it to London, but so did the Nigerians.
Wow!
Jeff Taylor from
FIBA Today
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