Thoughts on Women's Olympic Basketball - Day 1

By Ken Black: SPM NY Columnist (Commentary)
Posted Monday, August 11, 2008

Friday night August 8, 2008. 08/08/08. I was elated and bummed at the same time – elated that the Games of the 29th Olympiad were starting – and bummed that I didn’t have access to the Olympic Basketball Channel NBC was offering.

Basketball is my favorite sport. Well, that may be an understatement. It’s more than that to me. I will spare you the clichéd phrases of “it’s my passion,” or “it’s my life” (even though both phrases apply). Basketball is in a way…me. I watch NBA, WNBA, have renewed season tickets for Syracuse University men’s basketball for the third consecutive year, will continue to go to the same university’s women’s basketball games, subscribe to NBA League Pass, and I won’t mention the local high school games I scramble to attend. When I’m not attending a basketball game or watching one on TV, I’m hitting the NBA, WNBA, NCAA, and FIBA web sites and countless other hoop sites on the internet.

As I watched in awe the extravaganza that was the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics, I was overcome with pride that Lopez Lomong, a local guy 13 miles south down the highway from me, carried the flag of the United States during this ceremony. After that passed, thoughts came back to me of a conversation I had with a friend of mine over lunch a few days prior about the Olympic Basketball Channel. I was conveying how excited I was about watching the Olympic basketball games when he said to me I’d better call our local cable company because he didn’t think we subscribers had access to it. Rather than smearing his face with the chicken salad sandwich I was eating in retaliation for him making this comment, or calling the cable company to find out whether we had access to this channel or not (I couldn’t handle the truth if he was right), I took his opinion as gospel.

The closing ceremonies ended on my television screen midnight EST. Since Beijing is twelve hours ahead of my time zone, I knew the women’s basketball competition had already started. I didn’t want to go to bed yet so I went up to the high definition television channels tier to see what was on. I went up to channel 864 when I saw…what? Wait a minute here…it was the NBC Olympic Soccer channel…I remember reading a few weeks ago that this channel was being offered along with…the Olympic Basketball Channel…I started hyperventilating…what were the odds of channel 865 being the Olympic Basketball Channel? The thought of this took my blood pressure from normal to at least 180 over 95 and it was climbing…I took a drink of water, tried to calm down, closed my eyes and pressed the remote to go to channel 865. I didn’t hear anything. I opened my eyes and saw…are my eyes deceiving me? Perhaps I’m delirious…I saw a screen that said “women’s basketball, next broadcast August 9, 2:30am,” with a schedule of all the women’s games that day…it was…it was…THE OLYMPIC BASKETBALL CHANNEL! I set my alarm for 2:30am and went to bed. When the alarm went off at that time, I turned on the set and the game that was starting was:

This was the marquee match up on Day 1 of competition in my opinion. Both of these squads are up and coming teams and China could be quite scary by the time the 2010 world championship commences. What impressed me most with China was how they hit the boards and control tempo. They out-rebounded Spain 48-35. Their bigs, 6-5 Chen Nan and 6-1 Bian Lan are very active in the paint. They contest any and everything around the basket, can hit outside shots and post up very well. They combined for 27 points and 22 rebounds. Their defense held Spain to 36.1% shooting from the floor. Spain made a great comeback after being down 13 points at half time but couldn’t pull out a victory. It is tough playing a good host country team on their court. China wins 67-64. The next game coming up was…
There was at least a half hour wait for this game to begin after the first one concluded, and I’m sorry to say my eyes couldn’t wait that long. I missed the entire game. A shame that I did because it went overtime. What? Brazil? The team that’s ranked 4th in the FIBA world rankings? Brazil’s a team that’s won a world championship, has defeated the United States a few times in the past, and had 3 of the best players in the world in Hortencia, “Magic” Paula, and most recently, Janeth Arcain. Brazil went overtime with South Korea? Yes, they did. The problem is these three players are retired, and no one has taken the reigns to continue the legacy these players built. Glancing at the stat sheet, two things jump out at me as to why Brazil lost this game: they shot a woeful 35.4% from the field, and the turned the ball over – ouch – 29 times versus 10 assists. Not the greatest assist-to-turnover ratio. South Korea didn’t shoot much better from the field at 36.2%, but they only committed 12 turnovers. Although South Korea was bludgeoned on the boards 53-31, they stole the ball a whopping 14 times. Obviously Brazil didn’t take care of the basketball. I bet they wish they had Iziane now. South Korea wins the OT thriller 68-62. When I finally woke up, I immediately looked at the TV to see…
…and there was a timeout with the score 13-2…CZECH REPUBLIC???? No, that can’t be…I’m still in a dream state no doubt…I got up, washed my face quickly, came back, the players are on the court and well I’ll be…IT IS 13-2 CZECH REPUBLIC!! What the hhhhhhhhheck is happening? The timeout did wonders for the USA though as they got very aggressive on defense which led to easy fast break lay ups, and that killer move Cappie Pondexter made not only had LeBron and Kobe standing up, but me as well. USA led 49-31 at half and 75-44 at the end of the third quarter. Game over. “The Diana” scored 17 and “Big Syl” Fowles has 16 and 14 in 17 minutes of playing time? If she continues to do anything close to that, Lisa Leslie will have her fourth gold medal.

USA wins 97-57. The next game I REALLY wanted to see. It was the last game of the night (in China) and morning (for me in the USA eastern time zone)…

…question: how many blondes can there be on a basketball team? Is there a limit? Count the blonde maids all in a row: Becky Hammon, Maria Stepanova, Ilona Korstin…I checked to see if Coach Igor Grudin’s hair was blond as well and thank God it wasn’t. This wasn’t a great game for Russia. After holding Latvia to 7 points in the first quarter to lead by 7, the Russians were outscored in periods 2 and 3 41-27 and were staring at a 48-41 deficit going into the final quarter. Latvia’s Liene Jansone was lighting Russia up brighter than the fireworks launched at the opening ceremony. I don’t know what Coach Grudin said in that huddle but it must’ve been something very strong because his team came out in that quarter and played some of the best defense I’ve seen. They capitalized on Latvia’s lack of experience in a game like this and outscored their opponent 21-9 in the final stanza to get the win. They used their height advantage to win the battle of the boards 43-31. Russia wins 62-57.

The sand man came to visit me again and I did not see the last two games on the Olympic Basketball Channel, those games being Australia vs. Belarus and Mali vs. New Zealand. The reports on the first game gave the feeling that although the Aussies weren’t threatened, the folks from Belarus showed so well for themselves that they have a great shot at a quarterfinal berth. No doubt it was tough for them to play the reigning world champions to start the tournament. Australia is stacked in talent with the likes of Penny Taylor, Tully Bevilaqua, Belinda Snell, and Lauren Jackson, arguably the best player in the world. Jackson, Taylor, and Suzy Batkovic combined to score 44 points and grab 27 rebounds in an 83-64 Australia win. The Australians are a serious threat to end the USA’s quest for a fourth consecutive gold medal. The USA Today seems to agree, as they predicted the Aussies to win the gold.

New Zealand beat Mali 76-72 in a game that probably will determine that the Tall Ferns will have won 1 game in these Olympics while Mali will go winless. Even though they both are improving, they still have some work to do in becoming competitive against the top teams in the world.

I have the NBC Olympic Basketball Channel and it is awesome. The best part is there aren’t any commercials. It feels like I’m sitting at the game.