U.S. Basketball Coach Faults Weak Effort Against Australia
by Josh Gerstein
Wed, 6 Aug 2008 at 9:39 AM
The American men's basketball coach, Mike Krzyzewski, is still bemoaning his team's performance against Australia last night, where the all-star American squad managed only an 87-76 win and at one point was up only four points over the Aussies.
"Now we're playing teams that are at a higher level and they're teams who are unbelievably familiar with this game so we keep learning about the game and that's what we've tried to do over the last three years and we scheduled Lithuania, Russia and Australia. Those are all potential opponents in the medal round. Hopefully, if we finish well, those three can all be medal round teams and that's good for us to be able to do that," the coach said during a press availability in Beijing at the ceremonial opening of a workout and training center set up by an American health club chain, 24-Hour Fitness.
Mr. Krzyzewski acknowledged that his team may have lost focus, but he insisted the Australian team's strength did not sneak up on him or his players. " No. No. No one surprised us. We played our best game against Lithuania and I thought we played really well defensively against Russia. Against Australia, I didn't think we played as well. I don't know if we were already looking ahead to being here and the fact that Australia played well. They had just come off a game against Argentina where they were beating Argentina by 19 and lost by a bucket or so. So, veteran teams we're playing, veteran international teams, and that's good for us," he said.
Asked whether his players might have lacked motivation, the coach told a reporter, "I'm sure not every article you write is not good as some of the great ones that you've written…The other thing is someone's not trying to stop you from writing your article. These other teams are good. And I don't think we need any extra motivation it's just a matter of sometimes you're not at the top of your game abut again I'd like to re emphasize that I think Australia had a lot to do with that. They're playing really good basketball right now."
Some of the players were expected at the ribbon-cutting ceremony but they arrived late and opted to pay a visit to the Olympic Village instead, the coach said.
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