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Fresh off of a buzzer beating win over America's rival Uruguay, spirits are high for Team USA here in Poland. Martin Medrano, who has been exhausted flying back and forth between Iran where his league team plays, to other various countries for the B3, finally decided to do something for the NT. With seconds left in overtime, Medrano rubbed his magic sideburns (6627366), received the pass from veteran Ismael Grubbs, and calmly canned the game winner.

As always in the Worlds, there wasn't that much time to celebrate. Today, I met my Assistant Coach namssor and my PR-Director SpF in the lobby of our hotel for an important meeting. We were planning to meet up with GM-Direwolf, manager of Team Australia, just as a friendly get together before our match against the #9 ranked Australians. Before we left the hotel, we were approached by an Elvis impersonator. I told wozz to come along.

About halfway through lunch with Direwolf the conversation got interesting:

Namssor: Well we are looking forward to a great game with you on Monday, but it would sure be nice if you guys just threw the game...but hey I like your watch, I'll buy it from you for say...$150,000?

Direwolf: Make it $500,000.

Namssor: 250?

Direwolf: 400.

Namssor: Alright I think we have an understanding. Jfarb pay the man.

Jfarb: Ummmm, we kinda don't have the money anymore.

Namssor: What?! I thought we won a bunch betting on the Uruguay game? What happened?

Jfarb: More gambling happened.

SpF: Jairo and I bought a bunch of fireworks for Polish kids to celebrate the 4th of July.

Elvis: These costumes aren't cheap.

Namssor: *Sigh*


Join us for what is sure to be another dramatic battle, as USA faces off with Australia on Independence Day, at 12:30pm Eastern, 9:30am Pacific.

Discussion: (http://s3.zetaboards.com/BuzzerBeater_USA_NT/topic/749790...)

so, did we clinch a medal? On July 4th?

Nope, still have work to do

It was a shootout here at the Sitno Sporthal Arena in Poland, as we battled #9 Australia in a must win game. Before the game, Australian star center Rudolph Radford (5888983) was trash talking with Jairo, and said that Jairo's head looks like a "sucked mango." That was all the motivation Jairo needed as he came out guns blazing, hitting 4-4 shots and grabbing 6 rebounds early in the 1st quarter. But when Radford called Jairo a "bloody wombat" tempers started flaring and Jairo flagrant fouled him twice and was ejected after only 10 minutes of play.

Thanks to Jairo's first quarter play, we were up 36-24 at the end of the quarter, but now playing without out star center, the lead began to deteriorate in the 2nd quarter. Radford and PF Liang Huaizheng (9469661) punished our depleted frontcourt, combining for 54 points and 25 rebounds.

At halftime namssor reminded the team that today is our day, and that America expects greatness from their National Team on this day. We then replayed Rambo's speech from our semifinal game vs Argentina last season, that he ripped from the movie Independence Day. Since it was July 4th, the speech actually made some sense this time, and the players responded.

Despite Australia's dominance inside, they could not stop our world class guards. Team USA welcomed back Ricardo Madrid, who scored 17 points in 23 minutes after a long absence due to poor game shape from eating Polish Taco Bell. Martin Medrano, fresh off of hitting the game winner vs Uruguay, scored 23 points in 24 minutes of work, hitting 10 of 14 shots. In all 6 guards scored in double figures, and we came away with a solid 129-116 victory.

This win puts us at 4-2 with 1 game remaining in the 2nd round of the Worlds. Unfortunately, we failed to clinch a semifinal berth, as Spain stayed within striking distance with a convincing win over Uruguay. Now we must attempt to defeat defending Worlds Champion #1 Chile in order to potentially avoid becoming the first 4 win team in Worlds history to fail to reach the semifinal.