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Bball Olympics Thread

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Sean Miller Fan

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8 of the 12 teams qualified for the knockout round. Its crazy how unbalanced the brackets are though. On the 1 side, it has the 3 best teams (USA, Canada, France). Canada and France have to play a quarterfinal for the right to play USA.

The bottom half, anyone can make the final. Germany plays Greece and Serbia plays Australia.

I am picking USA over Canada and then Greece over Serbia. USA over Greece. I wouldn’t say Greece is a Top 5 team but they have a very weak bracket and the best player on that side.
 
Sean Miller Fan said:
8 of the 12 teams qualified for the knockout round. Its crazy how unbalanced the brackets are though. On the 1 side, it has the 3 best teams (USA, Canada, France). Canada and France have to play a quarterfinal for the right to play USA.

The bottom half, anyone can make the final. Germany plays Greece and Serbia plays Australia.

I am picking USA over Canada and then Greece over Serbia. USA over Greece. I wouldn’t say Greece is a Top 5 team but they have a very weak bracket and the best player on that side.
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That is not correct. If the US beats Brazil they would play the winner of Serbia and Australia in the semifinal, not the Canada-France winner.

The four teams in the US's half are ranked 1, 12, 4 and 5. The teams in the other half are ranked 3, 14, 7 and 9. By world ranking it would actually be easier for the US to be playing the winner of 7 vs 9 in the semis rather than the winner of 4 vs 5.
 
Joe the Panther Fan said:
That is not correct. If the US beats Brazil they would play the winner of Serbia and Australia in the semifinal, not the Canada-France winner.

The four teams in the US's half are ranked 1, 12, 4 and 5. The teams in the other half are ranked 3, 14, 7 and 9. By world ranking it would actually be easier for the US to be playing the winner of 7 vs 9 in the semis rather than the winner of 4 vs 5.
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That makes sense. I was going off of what was on Wikipedia.
 
Sean Miller Fan said:
8 of the 12 teams qualified for the knockout round. Its crazy how unbalanced the brackets are though. On the 1 side, it has the 3 best teams (USA, Canada, France). Canada and France have to play a quarterfinal for the right to play USA.

The bottom half, anyone can make the final. Germany plays Greece and Serbia plays Australia.

I am picking USA over Canada and then Greece over Serbia. USA over Greece. I wouldn’t say Greece is a Top 5 team but they have a very weak bracket and the best player on that side.
Click to expand...
This seems like a take from someone that hasn't watched any games.

Germany is the defending world champs and definitely the second ranked team to the US right now.
 
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cease10 said:
This seems like a take from someone that hasn't watched any games.

Germany is the defending world champs and definitely the second ranked team to the US right now.
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I haven't watched Germany but I've seen their roster. Its The Wagner Brothers and Denis Schroeder. You are insane if you think that team is better than Canada, who has a roster full of good NBA players. Germany had that old goofball from UConn, Niels Giffey.
 
Sean Miller Fan said:
I haven't watched Germany but I've seen their roster. Its The Wagner Brothers and Denis Schroeder. You are insane if you think that team is better than Canada, who has a roster full of good NBA players. Germany had that old goofball from UConn, Niels Giffey.
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Games are not won on paper, they are won on the court. The German players have played together a long time, so they have great chemistry. Also, they are the defending world champs. Last year, both Canada and Germany beat Team USA which also was made up of a roster of NBA players.

Canada and Germany match up well against each other.
 
cease10 said:
Games are not won on paper, they are won on the court. The German players have played together a long time, so they have great chemistry. Also, they are the defending world champs. Last year, both Canada and Germany beat Team USA which also was made up of a roster of NBA players.
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You'd think that someone who watches the United States sometimes struggle to win games, and sometimes (not this year yet) loses games, would understand that it's not just about who can put the most talent on the court.

Hell, he watched Pitt basketball beat teams with more talent on a regular basis not all that long ago.
 
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cease10 said:
Games are not won on paper, they are won on the court. The German players have played together a long time, so they have great chemistry. Also, they are the defending world champs. Last year, both Canada and Germany beat Team USA which also was made up of a roster of NBA players.

Canada and Germany match up well against each other.
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Yea but Canada is too talented. I also dont care Germany won the WC vs B teams.

Here's my official picks:

USA over Australia
Canada over Greece

USA over Canada
Greece over Australia
 
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Sean Miller Fan said:
Yea but Canada is too talented. I also dont care Germany won the WC vs B teams.

Here's my official picks:

USA over Australia
Canada over Greece

USA over Canada
Greece over Canada
Click to expand...

My picks:

Serbia 🇷🇸 over Australia 🇦🇺

France 🇫🇷 over Canada 🇨🇦..... I'm not impressed with either team, so I'll go with the home team.

Germany 🇩🇪 over Greece 🇬🇷

Germany 🇩🇪 and USA 🇺🇸 for the gold 🏅
France 🇫🇷 and Serbia 🇷🇸 battle for the bronze.
 
Grandparents are from Greece so I was rooting for them, the team is Giannis and a bunch of dudes who chuck up bad 3 point attempts, they got as far as they got purely due to him.
 
cease10 said:
My picks:

Serbia 🇷🇸 over Australia 🇦🇺

France 🇫🇷 over Canada 🇨🇦..... I'm not impressed with either team, so I'll go with the home team.

Germany 🇩🇪 over Greece 🇬🇷

Germany 🇩🇪 and USA 🇺🇸 for the gold 🏅
France 🇫🇷 and Serbia 🇷🇸 battle for the bronze.
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Well done.
 
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happjack said:
Grandparents are from Greece so I was rooting for them, the team is Giannis and a bunch of dudes who chuck up bad 3 point attempts, they got as far as they got purely due to him.
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The ironic thing is, this is a bad generation of Greek basketball, Giannis showed up at a time the rest of the squad isn't as good. In the past Greece has won multiple European titles and in fact won the silver in the 2006 World Cup, beating USA in the semi-final, yeah, they had LeBron, Carmelo, Wade etc. and Greece had no NBA players. Greece was the ONE in Coach K's 49-1 record as head coach of USA National Team.
 
I think Serbia will give the US a tough game tomorrow. This will be the third game between both teams in just a few weeks. Serbia has definitely been game planning for the US.

Team USA should still pull it out though, but I don't expect it to be easy.
 
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Ski11585 said:
lol. SMF "knows basketball."
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I went with 3 underdogs. Wasnt impressed with Germany but Greece couldn't do anything offensively. Calathes is getting too old and Walkup isnt good enough. They should have naturalized someone better. Still, Greece was up 18-6 so they should have been able to hang.

Australia blew a 24 point lead. I still feel Australia was better but Serbia got hot.

France played very well, inspired ball in front of the home crowd. They looked to be the better team that day. On a neutral court, I'd take Canada.
 
I think about how good the modern yugoslavian basketball team would be if the country still existed probably once or twice a month. Imagine adding Luka, another bogdanovic and tons front court depth to the serbian team today.
 
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121rum said:
I think about how good the modern yugoslavian basketball team would be if the country still existed probably once or twice a month. Imagine adding Luka, another bogdanovic and tons front court depth to the serbian team today.
Click to expand...

Damn Gorbachev!
 
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121rum said:
I think about how good the modern yugoslavian basketball team would be if the country still existed probably once or twice a month. Imagine adding Luka, another bogdanovic and tons front court depth to the serbian team today.
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assuming they did not murder each other....diversity was their strength.
 
upj87 said:
Might want to run that by the 1.4 billion communists in China...Yugoslavia not part of Warsaw pact and distinct and not aligned with the Soviets....man, I wish they taught you kids stuff in school...
Click to expand...

The fall of the USSR influenced the fall of Communist Yugoslavia.
 
Sean Miller Fan said:
The fall of the USSR influenced the fall of Communist Yugoslavia.
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It didn’t, following Tito’s death in 1980 the tensions between the various ethnic group got more intense every year until it blew up in 1990, they also had massive debt due to a variety of reasons which put more fuel on the fire. They were going to break up no matter what was going on in the Soviet Bloc.
 
I don’t know how many communists there are in China but I doubt there are 140 million out of a population of 1.4 billion. There is a lot of capitalism in China and there are a lot of very rich Chinese. There are mansions in Shanghai that rival any in the world.
 
happjack said:
It didn’t, following Tito’s death in 1980 the tensions between the various ethnic group got more intense every year until it blew up in 1990, they also had massive debt due to a variety of reasons which put more fuel on the fire. They were going to break up no matter what was going on in the Soviet Bloc.
Click to expand...

We'll never know. Communism was becoming less chic.
 
cease10 said:
Yep, USA does not with the gold without Steph going off. That was truly amazing to watch. What a great way to cap off his career. I was truly WOWed.

France and Wemby played a great game and had nothing to be a shame of.
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What’s funny is I posted that prior to his last shot. Which was just absolutely insane.
 
The greatest thing about these last 2 games is it answers the famous barstool question: "Game on the line, which 5 guys are you putting on the floor." Its Steph, Book, LeBron, KD, and AD/Embiid
 
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King Of All Message Boards said:
What’s funny is I posted that prior to his last shot. Which was just absolutely insane.
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Yes, I did not expect that last shot to go in at all.

I've always respected Steph, but I think his performance in these last two games should cement his legacy as one of the greatest players. That was truly amazing to watch and especially on the international stage like this.

Steph has changed the game and brought back the importance of shooting to the game.
 
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cease10 said:
I've always respected Steph, but I think his performance in these last two games should cement his legacy as one of the greatest players.
Click to expand...

He could have shot 0-40 in this tournament and his legacy was still cemented. The question is, is he 2nd Team All Time or 3rd Team

1st Team
MJ
LeBron
Kobe
Magic
Shaq

2nd Team
Steph
Duncan
Dirk
Bird
KD
 
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