There can be no gold medal for the USA on the males’s basketball World Cup – and for the second consecutive time within the sport’s largest worldwide event, there often is the embarrassment of no medal in any respect for the Americans.
Instead, it’s Germany on the cusp of a world title.
Andreas Obst scored 24 factors, Franz Wagner added 22 and Germany scored extra factors than any group ever has towards a USA Basketball group that includes NBA gamers — incomes a 113-111 win within the World Cup semifinals on Friday.
“This team is very worthy of winning a championship,” US coach Steve Kerr mentioned, praising his conquerors.
“And we just didn’t get it done.”
No, they didn’t – and now questions will fly as soon as once more.
USA Basketball has been speaking for years about how the continuity of prime worldwide groups has closed what was as soon as a sizeable hole between the Americans and the remainder of the world.
The US have received the final 4 Olympic titles, however now it’s two straight World Cups with no gold for the main basketball nation.
“Terrible,” US guard and captain Jalen Brunson mentioned. “Plain and simple.”
Germany — the final unbeaten group left within the event at 7-0 — will now play Serbia on Sunday in an all-European conflict for the World Cup title.
Serbia beat Canada within the first semi-final, attending to their second World Cup ultimate within the final three tournaments. They had misplaced 129-92 to the US within the 2014 championship recreation.
Earlier on Sunday, the US should beat Canada within the bronze-medal recreation if they’re to keep away from going dwelling empty-handed once more.
“It’s a special group,” Germany coach Gordie Herbert mentioned after his group made the World Cup ultimate for the primary time.
“The way we played, the way we played together, we stuck together when things got tough and we had players who made some huge plays. One more to go.”
The US, down by 10 halfway by means of the fourth, almost pulled off a comeback, getting inside one level on two separate events within the ultimate minutes.
But the Americans by no means received the lead, and it was the Germans leaping and hugging as time expired.
Anthony Edwards prepared the ground, scoring 23 factors for the US, however they couldn’t cease the Germans taking pictures at 58 per cent, which was their final undoing.
The earlier excessive for factors allowed by a US males’s group within the Olympics or World Cup within the period when NBA gamers could possibly be used — going again to 1992 — was 110.
And that was earlier on this event, towards Lithuania, in one other US loss.
“We weren’t ever able to make them feel us defensively,” Kerr mentioned of the most recent setback.
Germany had been 0-6 towards the Americans in World Cup or Olympic competitors going into the match.
Not this time.
Once once more, even bringing the one roster full of all NBA gamers, wasn’t sufficient for the US on the World Cup.
The Americans completed seventh on the 2019 occasion in China. This end — third or fourth — will technically be higher, however nothing aside from gold was going to be passable for USA Basketball.
Source: www.perthnow.com.au
