Big hopes after South American and Centrobasket Championships

BUENOS AIRES (Martín Seldes' Brave column) - Things become a little bit different when you travel to a city where the Olympic Games will take place. Everything has something to do with that.

You wake up thinking of the venues and you go to sleep thinking about Australia's Penny Taylor's injury. That's why when I was following the South American and the Centrobasket Championships, I could only think of how the three American teams can get, at least, one of the spots for London at the FIBA Olympic Qualifying tournament (OQT), starting next week.

And I was also thinking about which players would the coaches from Argentina and Brazil choose from the teams that played in Chaco.

First of all, the Dominican Republic were the big winners of these two tournaments.

With coach John Calipari back on the team, with Al Horford fully recovered and with an unstoppable Jack Michael Martínez, DR surprised many as they beat the hosts and favourites, Puerto Rico, in the Final.

Not only that. After a whole year of doubts and injuries, the team was able to demonstrate it still keeps the chemistry it showed at the 2011 FIBA Americas Championship.

It's unsure yet whether the fact that Charlie Villanueva withdrew from playing with the national team this season can be good or not. But it wouldn't be a surprise if that's the case.

Immediately after the Centrobasket was over, the Dominicans lost to Angola in a friendly game which shouldn't be anything terrible, but a good example that the OQT will be probably one of the hardest competitions the team has ever played.

Despite their loss to DR in the Final, Puerto Rico still remain the best American card to win one of the three spots that were all for European teams in 2008.

Carlos Arroyo and Nathan Peavy joined the team after the Centrobasket and are now ready for the action. If they can play as a team, rebound and be patient on offense, Puerto Rico can beat both Greece (in Group A) or Lithuania (in the Quarter-Finals) to get close to playing in an Olympic Games for the first time since they did in Athens, eight years ago.

Therefore, there's nothing to worry about for Puerto Rico after losing the Centrobasket's final to their neighbors.

Before we analyse Venezuela's performance in the South American Championship, we must mention Jamaica's first basketball medal ever. With famous basketball names such as Jerome Jordan, Brian Grant, Weyinmi Rose, Samardo Samuels, Patrick A Ewing and others, the Islanders played like never before and outclassed Panama in the Bronze Medal Game.

Guided by Cleveland Cavaliers centre Samuels, who was helped by New York Knicks big man Jordan and a group of top level players in Europe and the Americas, Jamaica even threated Puerto Rico in the Semi-Finals. As they finished in the top four, they will make their first appearance in next year's FIBA Americas. 

We will have time to write about Jamaica and their improvements.

Venezuela were the team that disappointed me the most in last week's tournaments.

With almost their full team, they weren't able to beat a young Argentina roster in either of the two contests they played. And to make it worse, they showed a very bad level in the final game.

Again, nothing to worry about, but a big alert for the tournament Venezuela will host in 2-8 July.

Coach Eric Musselman will now join the team and probably help with many things.

Argentina won the tournament thanks to a respectable generation of young guards helped by the presence of experienced Leo and Juan Gutiérrez.

Both Facundo Campazzo and Nicolás Laprovittola did what they had to in order to earn one of the remaining places in the Olympic squad as a guard. Pablo Prigioni has his ticket ensured and one of the two 21-year-old players will join him.

Finally, Brazil were the team that cared the least about the tournament, while the Olympic players were already gathered and thinking about London.

Martín Seldes

FIBA

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