Game Thread: Ron Baker (USA) vs Venezuela

[The Mad Hatter]

Want to guess how often a Fred Van Vleet led team would have 5 assists and 15 turnovers?

Pro tip: while zero seems like the obvious answer, remember about the existence of negative numbers.

[The Mad Hatter]

Venezuela made it look pretty good.

Yeah, let's not blame the shot clock for the bad offense. If you aren't willing to pass the ball, all the shorter shot clock does is limit how long you can be a ball hog. A mediocre Venezuela team showed that you can run an offense with a high volume of passing and create open looks within 24 seconds.

[ShockerPhi]

The 4th quarter was definitely better for everyone. And can you guess why? BECAUSE TRIMBLE BARELY PLAYED. I can't wait to root against that punk this upcoming year. Brown got it together, but still ignored Ron more than he should have. Hopefully they have the right idea now, and the next game will be a lot more fun to watch.

[The Mad Hatter]

The only encouraging thing about the coaching decisions is that after spending an insane amount of time on the bench in the first half (while Trimble and others got plenty of run) Ron ended up playing over 22 minutes, which was 5th highest on the team.

[Aargh]

Baker finished with 7 points as I recall, which is pretty good for the number of touches he got.

I'm not certain, but I think that was 7 points on 3 of 5 from the field. May have been 3 of 4.

[1972Shocker]

I'm not liking the USA's chances to take home the gold. I would have said Team USA but that use of the word team for this group just doesn't quite seem to fit.

Very pleased with the game Ron had considering the other guys in the white uniforms (again "teammates" doesn't seem to fit) treated him like kryptonite on the offensive end of the floor for most of the game. His effort on the defensive end was stellar.

I was hoping this would be a great experience for Ron. Both from a basketball standpoint and from a pride in representing your country standpoint. Maybe that will prove to be the case but tonight's game was not very encouraging to say the least.

[The Mad Hatter]

Baker finished with 7 points as I recall, which is pretty good for the number of touches he got.

75% shooting. No big deal.

[Aargh]

Do you think Few can order Brown to give Baker more touches? Do you think he could order FVV to give Ron a few more touches?

The only way I can see that Trimble made this team is that his coach played politics and pulled strings. That's not going to turn out well, because Trimble's chances of going league early are taking a huge hit. If Trimblwe had a great Fr season in the B1G, then they must not guard or pressure PG's in the B1G.

[GOSHOX1]

Tremble was trash in that game plain and simple, should of had ron running point.

[shockar25]

Puerto Rico played TERRIBLY earlier today (caught it on replay). Hopefully Coach Few can get these guys to play something resembling team offense and they can continue to improve. We know Ron will bring his A game. It will be cool to see Ramon Clemente play against them. One of my favorite all time Shockers.

[Stickboy46]

Tremble was trash in that game plain and simple, should of had ron running point.

According to the announcers, Ron isn't qualified to play point

[kcshocker11]

Tremble was trash in that game plain and simple, should of had ron running point.

Should have had FVV running the point

[1972Shocker]

Do you think Few can order Brown to give Baker more touches? Do you think he could order FVV to give Ron a few more touches?

I don't think he would have to order FVV to give Ron or any of the other USA players more touches especially when they are wide open.

[Aargh]

We've never looked that hard at Baker's D. Cotton got a lot of deserved run on D. FVV's D is awesome.

Baker flat out shut down the guy who had been instrumental in Venezuela building their half-time lead. I thought Baker was easily the best, if not the only, USA player on D.

[Shock Top]

Turg looks like a fool now; picking his boy over Fred.

Yet one more action, to tarnish his WSU legacy.