Aug. 14, 2007

We spent the afternoon enjoying our win over China and the great sense of accomplishment in thinking we had made it to the medal round. Unfortunately, the information we were given about phase two was incorrect. We were told that going 2-0, with wins over Turkey and China, would move us into the medal round. The guys got that part done.

As I mentioned, the information we received about phase two was not correct. Turkey's huge upset of Lithuania put us in a three-way tie with those two teams. With identical 2-1 records against the teams in our phase two pool, a tiebreaker was forced to determine which two teams would move on. They took points for and points against with the games involving ourselves, Turkey and Lithuania. They divided points for by points against which gives each team a ratio. Turkey edged us out for second place and they and Lithuania will move on to the medal round.

We just finished our team meeting. That was hard. The news that we wouldn't move on to the medal round really hurt. The guys were very determined and extremely confident following our last three games. Their goal the entire time has been to bring back a medal for the Panthers and for Team USA. However, this doesn't take anything away from what we've accomplished the last three basketball games. We've learned a lot both individually and as a team. We will come home a much better basketball team. Fortunately, we have two games yet to play. We will face Finland on Thursday, and if we win, would play the winner of Greece and Israel in the 9^th place game.