Throughout the Olympic men's basketball tournament, FanHouse will prioritize the games of the day for you in Golden Ticket.We have a slate of six to open up the Games, including a game the president had to beg for tickets for.
GOLD: USA vs China, 10:15 a.m. EST, NBC. This game isn't the best on paper. But Yao Ming is leading his country against the titans of basketball in his home nation -- this is important. It feels a bit like USA vs Brazil in the 1994 World Cup, doesn't it? Of course, the Americans aren't the home 'dogs in this one, and China really isn't good enough to dream of beating the United States. By all measures, this should be a blow-out. Even if it becomes one, I have a suspicion the game will still feel important.
SILVER: Spain vs Greece, 2:30 a.m. EST. Spain won the 2006 FIBA World Championship and came within a missed basket of capturing the Euro title last summer. As deep as anyone and bright as a highlighter, Spain figures to at least challenge Team USA for gold. Greece is a good team -- a bit streaky, a world-beater who could lose to Australia, too. This game's incredibly important for the Spaniards. A loss to the Greeks puts Spain in line to get the Group B third seed at best (barring a win over Team USA), which sets up a match with Group A champs, possibly Lithuania or Argentina. Speaking of which ...
BRONZE: Lithuania vs Argentina, 4:45 a.m. EST. In the U.S., this one will be online only, unless you have that crazy 100% Olympic basketball channel on DirecTV. Being online only, those TiVo options are limited (unless you're severely efficient in tech matters) so you'll need to stay up late/get up early. Still, it might be worth it. Sarunas Jasikevicius and Manu Ginobili may not guard each other, but an epic battle can be easily imagined. The winner should brawl with Russia for the Group A top spot, which draws the worst elimination qualifier of Team USA's pool in the quarters.
In other action: Russia vs Iran, Germany vs Angola, Australia vs Croatia.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
8-09-2008 @ 6:41PM
Bob said...
I think that notice should be made how truly excited the members of the mens and womens basketball teams were at the opening ceremony. The stars of the NBA/WNBA were taking pictures with members of other teams. Kobe Bryant was asking a Photoghapher,how do you say thank you to someone who requested he take a picture with them for them. It is impressive to me how gratious my favorite player Kobe Bryant is and he is truly the new Flagbearer for Michael Jordan. There was no displays of anti-team sentiment that seamed all to real in the last Olympics which unfortunately LeBron James and Carmelo Anthony had to suffer through. If our coach was Coach D'Antoni or Coach "K"then the best players would have played instead of The ex Tarheel coach who I will not name here who played the rookies like he does all rookies which is next to nothing. He was the reason the USA did not go gold. The talent was there. The coaching and team spirit were not as the coaching style was to have players venting on each other and taking no ownership for the failure of his staff. This time Coach "K",D'Antoni, Kobe, Lebron, Dwayne, Carlos, and all the rest willbring back the Gold as they truly brought their hearts to the Games this time. God Bless the US Team and the USA
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