PARIS (George Eddy's International Show) - The 2014 FIBA Basketball World Cup was a well-organised event in a wonderful basketball-loving country. A better mixing of the groups for the Final Phase would have avoided the same teams playing each other repeatedly but the criticism stops there.

The USA are undisputably the world champs and Serbia was an unexpected and deserving finalist. The Final was a total opposition of styles that only really lasted four minutes! Serbia played their game and led early but the second foul on Milos Teodosic and a USA timeout were enough to swing the game in the USA's favor for good. After receiving a solid punch in the face, the USA pulled themselves together and put on a display of incredible shooting and one on one domination and then never looked back!

Kyrie Irving, James Harden and DeMarcus Cousins led the way as the USA played their best game of the tournament on the day it counted the most. Using their ultimate athleticism and uptempo style, they suffocated Serbia behind a 6-for-6 three-point shooting display by tournament MVP Irving, who kick-started the forthcoming hurricane.

Coach K's soldiers were never really in danger during the two weeks of competition and showed a good attitude and fabulous pressure defense throughout. He is the world's best ego manager as well as the world's highest paid coach!

All of the USA's players were so talented and efficient it is tough to single out who were the best performers but Irving and Kenneth Faried were chosen to be in the All-Star Five along with Teodosic, the new Sasha Djordjevic, Nicolas "Batman" Batum, and Pau Gasol. One could make a case for Jonas Valenciunas, Lithuania's best player, to make the top five but the same could be said of Harden.

As far as the coaches go, you could say that France's Vincent Collet coached the best game of his career in their historic, earth-shaking victory over Spain and Djordjevic coached his career game against the European champions in the Semi-Finals.

France got the most surprising victory thanks to 40 minutes of total concentration but Serbia was the surprise team of the tournament, eliminating handily Greece, Brazil and France after a mediocre first round in Granada.

France's elimination of Spain and their first-ever podium finish in FIBA's flagship event crowned a joyful week that saw the country learn it would host the next EuroBasket.

The fact that Spain didn't win the Cup at home with their Spanish Dream Team gives France food for thought as they prepare to field their own French Dream Team next summer to try to qualify for the 2016 Olympic Games. Many of France's new generation of young players scored important points towards a selection next summer when the competition for spots will be intense!

Their leaders, Boris Diaw and Batum, paved the way in the absence of superstar Tony Parker, Nando De Colo and several top centers including Joakim Noah.

Batum scored 62 points in an 18-hour period to guarantee his selection in the All-Star Five. Despite a miracle comeback against Serbia, a weak start condemned France in the Semi-Final as they sputtered until halftime and got too far behind.

All the semi-finalists deserved their rank, but in the end the USA stood alone on the podium.

We won't forget that Senegal achieved its best performance ever and that Turkey was the only team to play eye-to-eye with the USA for three quarters.  Hats off to Argentina for a gutsy showing that ends with a noble swan song for an exiting golden generation.

All this to say that we leave Spain with a lot of fine memories and optimistic hope for the future of world-wide basketball, a sport that seems to be improving everywhere at a very fast pace!

George Eddy

FIBA

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