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Rambo VT USA 109 Colombia 89 +20
Sherlock Holmes USA 121 Colombia 100 +21
jfarb001 USA 110 Colombia 100 +10
JFlores USA 130 Colombia 97 +33
Coco USA 105 Colombia 89 +16
Edju USA 114, Colombia 87 +27
Greendodge USA 111, Colombia 91 +20
SM USA 112 Colombia 103 +9
Jelme USA 110 Colombia 96 +14
Azariah USA 107 Columbia 99 +8

Rambo VT USA 109 Colombia 89 +20
Sherlock Holmes USA 121 Colombia 100 +21
jfarb001 USA 110 Colombia 100 +10
JFlores USA 130 Colombia 97 +33
Coco USA 105 Colombia 89 +16
Edju USA 114, Colombia 87 +27
Greendodge USA 111, Colombia 91 +20
SM USA 112 Colombia 103 +9
Jelme USA 110 Colombia 96 +14
Azariah USA 107 Columbia 99 +8
BB-Charles USA 101 Colombia 94 +7
Peluin USA 99 Columbia 94 +5

Rambo VT USA 109 Colombia 89 +20
Sherlock Holmes USA 121 Colombia 100 +21
jfarb001 USA 110 Colombia 100 +10
JFlores USA 130 Colombia 97 +33
Coco USA 105 Colombia 89 +16
Edju USA 114, Colombia 87 +27
Greendodge USA 111, Colombia 91 +20
SM USA 112 Colombia 103 +9
Jelme USA 110 Colombia 96 +14
Azariah USA 107 Columbia 99 +8
BB-Charles USA 101 Colombia 94 +7
Peluin USA 99 Columbia 94 +5
FC USA 109 Columbia 98 +11

Sooo...

What was that about?

Yeah, pretty disheartening loss. A couple quick thoughts here, and I'll try to post a more thorough recap on the offsite in the next few days.

- Our loss combined with Argentina's comeback win means we'll have to qualify for worlds through the repechage. This is how the u21 team qualified this year, so it's certainly possible, but it's a huge disappointment.

- We know Portugal and Turkey are also in the repe from Europe, along with the losers of their semi's (Germany-France, Spain-Italy). Panama and the losers of the America's semis (Chile-Uruguay, Arg-Brasil) will also be there, but we won't be paired with any of them.

- We only lost two games this season, but that was enough. Both games were vs a 3-2 defense, despite having pretty good lineups/tactics to try to beat the 3-2 (especially vs Colombia). This offseason we'll have to work on this, and I'd expect a pretty revamped roster for next season.

- For those curious, this last game was a normal for us, vs Colombia's CT. We knew that was coming, but thought a normal should have been enough. CT wasn't really an option, as it would have left us with no chance in the semi's, in which case we'd be right back where we are now.

More to come, but now it's time to update our scouting lists and prepare for the next step.

Tough one and definitely raises some questions. Bit perplexed that we couldn't beat them on the boards overall considering their 3-2 zone. Even more surprising was that this game wasn't lost at the "swing" SF position. Unfortunately we just got killed at SG, both on off and def.

Not sure why our SG's took so many shots, ended up with our lowest efficiency position also being the highest usage. That combined with their superior GS in all the right places along with the CT-normal doomed us.

Last edited by brian at 3/16/2010 10:51:33 AM

After a little more time of looking at the result, tactics, etc, all I'm clear about its that this result defies explanation. Two good guards and a well rounded SF feeding two good inside scoring centers against a weak 3-2 zone is a recipe for a huge USA win.

Apparently we took lots of late in the shot clock long range desperation 3pfg. Why? Look inside is the faster paced inside option, were those really the best opportunities over 24 seconds?

The only thing that stands out is the CT vs Normal. Effort and enthusiasm, love it.

Well, on the boards, 3-2 doesn't hurt rebounding. You would think with LI vs RnG we'd get more OReb's, but they were up 18-9 there, which is very odd.

As for the rest, yeah, there's definitely some frustrations. The crazy long 3s suggest we weren't able to get any inside passes off in time. I had hoped the high tempo good passing guards would help that, but apparently not.

Bronson definitely struggled. Only 1 assist from a high passing SG wasn't what we needed (compared to 5 for billingsley who has slightly worse passing). And we couldn't really have put more OD on their SG than we did, unless guys had been in better GS. There might be an argument that Bronson's low experience hurt, but that seems a little like grasping at straws.

Colombia probably TIE'd every game up til now, and so was probably a bit higher than us on enthusiasm. That with the extra effort was apparently enough to do it. I don't really like that explanation, though, because it implies that 2-3 enthus points + 1 level of effort was enough to flip a +42 point margin for us to +13 for them. Some of that 55 point swing must be improved tactics from them, but, well, that's a big swing.