SAN JUAN (William Rosario's Somewhere in the Americas) - Almost three weeks ago, FIBA Americas announced that the Semi-Finals of the 2014 Liga de las Americas would be played in Xalapa, Mexico and Montevideo, Uruguay. Some people jumped at the announcement, pointing out how there had been four tournaments played in Uruguay in a matter of months. As if there was some kind of bias.

Well, the fact cannot be disputed. The 2013 South American League Semi-Finals and Final Four were played in Montevideo, along with the first round and now the Semi-Finals of the Liga de las Americas. Uruguay seems to be having an international basketball renaissance, specifically in the professional team spectrum.

And it all starts and ends with Aguada.

The Montevideo club was founded in 1922 and quickly defined its identity as a basketball institution (in a soccer country), joining the Uruguayan Basketball Federation just two years later in 1924. In the 1940s, they became a dynasty in the then called "Campeonato Federal", winning four titles in a row and establishing themselves as the elite basketball club in the country.

They won two more in the 1970s and then, bam!... in came the big drought. Thirty six years went by before Aguada won it again. There were good players in between those years, with Tato López, Fefo Ruiz, Luis Pierri...etc and they even came close but it just did not happen.

Those are the years where the teams and their fans define themselves. And Aguada kept surviving as a club. Like the Boston Red Sox in the Major League Baseball, they waited and waited and last year, after signing Leandro Garcia Morales, they won the league championship. It was a big deal. Aguada was back.

That win qualified them to the 2013 South American League where they went all the way to the final game, losing to Uniceub and finishing second in the international competition. Thrilling victory after thrilling victory made them one of the most exciting teams to watch in the tournament, and the fans... well, the fans cemented that notion.

There is simply put no other fan base like Aguada's "hinchada". It stands on its own as the most passionate crowd you will see in America. There is singing all the way through the game, along with very creative flags and all types of noises, coming from a group made up of people of all ages that have a synchronicity like you would not believe.

Last year, in a victory over Bauru in the Final Four of the South American League, there were tears, hugs and a happiness that was contagious all around the stadium. It was as if it was bigger than Aguada's triumph, it was one for the whole country. And it makes you wonder if it wasn't a sign of things to come.

Uruguay, once a staple in the FIBA World Championship in the 1960s, has not been seen in that stage since 1986. There have been poor showings in FIBA Americas Championships, marred by disputes between players and the coaching and so on. It has been suffered all throughout a country that prides itself in calling basketball a solid number two sport, only behind soccer (in which they finished third in the last World Cup).

But these international accolades achieves by Aguada at club level might be a premonition. I can remember back in 2012, watching a Pioneros de Quintana Roo team win the Liga de las Americas that year, being the first Mexican team to do so and thinking "these guys played at an elite level", and then watching six of those players win the FIBA Americas Championship in unexpected fashion.

Those who were paying close attention to Pioneros in 2012, like Julio Lamas, Argentina's national team coach and Obras Sanitaras coach in that year's Liga de las Americas, knew that they had to be taken seriously.

"Nobody is thinking about Mexico," said Lamas last year prior to the FIBA Americas Championship in Caracas, "but I know those players and they are a serious contender."

I don't know why but that sequence of events make me think about Aguada's run and Uruguay's basketball future. Because in 2017, with the new calendar, with those types of crowds and the international development they are going through thanks to this international experience, to me, they will be a serious contender at least to get back to that world stage.

And that's where the magic of Aguada resides. If you think about it, it's a no brainer to be back here. There is the excitement of the stuff that is happening inside the court, outside the court and the possibilities of what can happen in future courts in this country. They have proven worthy of deserving every shot they can get.

William Rosario

FIBA Americas

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