USA Men's U18 National Team Dismantles Puerto Rico 106-64
7/17/2008 8:28:11 AM | Men's Basketball
Kemba Walker poured in 15 points, dished out eight assists and was credited for a pair of steals against Puerto Rico. He also, while being well guarded, hit an off-balanced 3-pointer at the first half buzzer to send the USA to the locker room with a 44-36 lead.
FORMOSA, Argentina (July 16, 2008) -- The 2008 USA Basketball Men's U18 National Team (3-0) put together another total team effort and the result was an overpowering 106-64 victory over Puerto Rico (2-1) on Wednesday night at the 2008 FIBA Americas U18 Championship in Formosa, Argentina. Five players scored in double digits, including University of Oregon freshman-to-be Matt Humphrey (Hales Franciscian H.S / Chicago, Ill.), UCLA freshman-to-be Malcolm Lee (John W. North H.S. / Riverside, Calif.) and University of Connecticut freshman-to-be Kemba Walker (Rice H.S. / New York, N.Y.), who each scored 15; Travis Wear (Mater Dei H.S. / Santa Ana, Calif.) notched his third double-digit game with 13; while University of Alabama freshman-to-be JaMychal Green (St. Jude H.S. / Montgomery, Ala.) finished with 12 points.
The USA advances to the medal semifinals and will play Canada (2-1) on Thursday, July 17 at 6:00 p.m. (all times listed are EDT), while Argentina (3-0) will play Puerto Rico for the right to advance to Friday's gold medal game. All four of the medal semifinalists have qualified to compete in the 2008 FIBA U19 World Championship, slated to be played in New Zealand.
In the day's other games host Argentina defeated Canada 74-64, Venezuela (1-2) captured an 85-64 victory over the Bahamas (0-3), and Uruguay (1-2) earned a 63-51 win over Mexico (0-3).
“What really pleases me is that so many guys contributed to this,” said USA and Davidson College head coach Bob McKillop. “Every guy on this roster played a role, had a part and was very instrumental to our success. It was a 40-minute effort. Our guys went from the opening tap to the end once again. For a coaching staff, we could want nothing more."
As is the case when these two countries meet in men's basketball the game was tightly contested at the start.
Puerto Rico set a deliberate and steady pace to start and the Americans, unable to get into their flow, found themselves trailing 14-7 midway through the first period. By the end of the quarter Puerto Rico was still up, 20-16.
The islanders sunk four threes to open the second quarter. But the U.S. continued to stay close, began putting the pressure on a little harder and with 2:09 to go before halftime the score was knotted at 36-apiece.
“In the beginning I think we fell more into their game,” said Walker. “I don't think we were playing the style that we like to play. They kind of slowed the game down and something we like to do is run. I don't think we did a good job of that in the first half. But in the second half we came out and stepped up our game and pulled away with the win.”
While the defense began turning the screws on one end of the court, the offense was reacting in near-perfect precision. Up 39-36 with just over a minute left, Travis Wear came up with a loose ball and got it to Walker for a dunk, then Walker came up with a last-second and closely guarded three at the buzzer to send the USA into the break up 44-36.
“First off, we needed to stop their offensive rebounding,” said Humphrey. “They kept getting on the glass. We started to stop that, then played better defense and pushed the ball more. That's what opened up the game for us. We wore them out. They were hitting threes, but the only reason they were shooting threes was a fatigue type of thing. They weren't being very aggressive so we just took advantage of that.”
Puerto Rico collected two points from the charity stripe to open the second half, but the USA's defense was simply too much. Receiving points from five different players, the U.S. reeled off 20 unanswered points to blow the game wide open, 64-38, with 13:41 to play.
In all, the USA's run, which started with a pair of Green free throws with 2:01 to play in the second quarter and was capped by a Travis Wear Dunk with 3:41 remaining in the third quarter, was a dominating 28-2 streak.
Further underscoring the USA's defensive effort, Puerto Rico went over 10 minutes without scoring a field goal. With 4:01 to play in the first half Isaac Sosa scored a bucket and the next field goal by his side came with 3:20 to play in the third quarter.
In addition to the scoring contributions of the five in double digits, Walker dished out a game-best eight assists and Maalik Wayns (Roman Catholic H.S. / Philadelphia, Pa.) had seven as the team was credited for 23 assists on 39 baskets. Travis Wear came up with a game-high nine rebounds and Green swatted a high of four shots.
The United States owned the glass to a tune of 61-42, shot 47.6 percent (39-82 FGs) from the field and 34.4 percent (11-32 3pt FGs) from 3-point, while limiting Puerto Rico to 27.6 percent (21-76 FGs) from the field and 27.6 percent (8-29 3pt FGs) from beyond the arc.
With the win, the USA upped its all-time record at this event to 32-1.
Virginia Commonwealth University head coach Anthony Grant and Georgetown University head coach John Thompson III are serving as assistant coaches.
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