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We are back!!! Thank you to all who voted for me in the election for my 3rd term here as coach, although there was not any other options . We came just short of the World gold this past season and now it is redemption time. But before we fight on the World stage again, we have a full season of Americas competition ahead of us, where we need to qualify for the Worlds competition. Americas has crept up on us quite quickly, and starts this coming Monday.

Our first group of Americas contains Costa Rica, Ecuador, Bahamas, Uruguay, Argentina and Bolivia. That is our opponents in order of which we play, so first up is Costa Rica. There isn't much to say these first few weeks since none or very little film is out there on our opponents, but simply looking from a roster standpoint they appear to be one of the weaker teams we will play in the group. Nevertheless, we are going to come out looking to deliver a statement win to the rest of the group.

Let's get this season underway!
Go USA!

We are back!!! Thank you to all who voted for me in the election for my 3rd term here as coach, although there was not any other options .

We're all being held hostage against our will!

United States 119-57 Costa Rica

Very efficient day from the team as we finish this game shooting 60% from the field. It is always nice walking away with a 62 point win, I did not really expect much else from this game. We simply outmatched our opponent and a convincing win such as this was the only possible result.

Next week we battle Ecuador. Ecuador is coming off a loss to Argentina in their first game of the season, and are a similarly built team to Costa Rica in a lot of ways. Their top player is a 20k salaried PF followed by a few guys in the 10-11k range before dropping below that. We are looking to come away with another convincing win in this one.

Go USA!

United States 114-49 Ecuador

Another blowout victory for the team today, as we simply outmatch and outclassed Ecuador. We got out to a blistering start in this one, winning the first quarter 32-10 and then kept it going from there. It was a great shooting day for the team, with a balanced scoring effort resulting in 54% shooting from the field and 45% from 3. Wagoner led the team shooting 8-14 with 21 points and pulled in 10 rebounds for the double double. 7 players ended up in double digits in scoring which is exactly what we like to see.

Bahamas is next week and we are expecting more of the same. They had a bye first week and are coming off a 35 point loss to Argentina this past week. They have a slightly better roster than the first 2 teams we have played, but we should be able to dominate our way to another clean win.

Go USA!

Hey all! Been a few weeks since I have posted an update in here so let me do a quick summary of the games we have played:

United States 95-45 Bahamas - simply a smashing, Bahamas does not compare

United States 115-84 Uruguay - a slightly more competitive game, but we had complete control throughout and ended with a 31 point win

United States 89-76 Argentina - easily our closest game yet, we were actually down 1 going into the 4th but we had a takeover quarter in the 4th that resulted in the 13 point win

United States 96-101 Australia - this was a scrimmage during our bye week, we decided to test some tactics/lineup and fell just short in overtime. Still not quite sure how this was even a loss, the ratings were substantially in our favor.

United States 50-0 Bolivia - the Bolivia team missed their flight and we had a shootaround with the fans, it was a fun experience!

So that concludes our first group where we end 6-0, we got our 2nd group matchups which are against Mexico, Bahamas (again), Peru, Brazil and Canada in that order. I feel we are in a great spot at the moment, but we will definitely have a few more competitive matchups in this group as Argentina was the only real force in the 1st group.

With Mexico up first, they have a good enough roster to put up a fight. they finished 4-2 in the 2 seed in their first group with losses to Chile and Jamaica. They have a couple players in the 20-30k salary range and they have good depth for each position. We are the likely favorites for this game but we can't take them lightly.

Let's have a strong 2nd group!
Go USA!

We are now somewhat midway through the group, having played 2 games with 3 more to go. In the first 2 games of the group we played Mexico and Bahamas:

United States 83-64 Mexico: We did not win this game by nearly as much as I thought we should have. Our offense was abysmal but the defense stepped up in a big way. Leading scorer of this game was Chuck Staley off the bench with 21 points, that tells somewhat of the story of this game.

United States 138-47 Bahamas: I mean, do I even need to elaborate on this one? I think not, utter domination.

Our final 3 games will all be good games, so this is where the real test begins. First, Peru. Peru sits at 0-2 in the group after 2 tough losses against Brazil and Canada. They have a few bigs above 20k salary, followed by a handful of guards just below them. It will be one of the better rosters we will have played up to this point so we are going to focus up and get this win.

No Bahama mamas ahead of this game!
Go USA!

We have reached the end of the group with the following results from the past few weeks:

United States 50-0 Peru - their plane overheated when trying to take off so they did not show up. Team was excited about an off day.

United States 106-76 Brazil - This was a very clean win against a strong Brazilian team. Brazil expected the inside from us with their 2-3, but also guessed balanced, both of which missed as we went Motion for this game. Bay Gardner had himself a day off the bench, being the leading scorer in only 17 minutes of play and shooting 5-6 from 3. The team shot 53% from 3 in this game which was very impressive as we walked away very satisfied with this win.

United States 108-74 Canada - This was an interesting one, as this was a must win game for Canada to have any shot at making playoffs/Worlds next season. We were fully expecting them to make more of an attempt to win this game but it appears that the Canadian coach got hungover the night before and slept through his alarm. This game ended up being very convincing despite the more effort from Canada, and it was a team effort with 7 players scoring in double digits. We sit atop our group comfortably, yet to drop a game this season.

Going into the playoffs, our opponent was decided in a final week matchup between Venezuela and Chile. Venezuela needed to beat Chile by 27 points to jump them into the 2 seed, which they made a good attempt at doing. Chile ultimately was just strong enough to only lose by 14 so we get Chile in the semifinals. Chile has had a very good season so far, with their only losses to Argentina and Venezuela. They have a very balanced team and have the ability to run any offense at their disposal. This will be a good match but we are going to come out hot to make sure we get this win.

Let's get that gold!
Go USA!