ESP - Harkening back to 1986

BARCELONA (FIBA Basketball World Cup) - There is already a buzz in Spain about the 2014 FIBA Basketball World Cup, which is expected to be the biggest and most important hoops tournament ever staged in the country.

The 24-team event will have games in Madrid, Barcelona, Seville, Bilbao, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria and Granada.

The best players from all over will converge on the Iberian Peninsula and go after gold.

Two sides are known.

Spain have a spot reserved as the host nation and the United States qualified by winning the gold medal at the London Olympics.

The forerunner of the FIBA Basketball World Cup, the FIBA World Championship, was held in Spain 26 years ago, just as the international game was beginning to undergo monumental change.

That tournament was a spectacle, and it was won by the United States.

While the Americans have always been the dominant force at the Olympics, it wasn't that way in World Championships.

Their gold medal in 1986 was the first for the Americans at a World Championship in 32 years.

The American squad was full of collegians.

It wasn’t until the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona that the USA team began to have NBA players.

It was, nevertheless, a squad of household names in America.

Tyrone 'Muggsy' Bogues, David Robinson, Steve Kerr, Kenny Smith, Sean Elliott, Tommy Amaker, Armon Gilliam, Tom Hammonds, Derrick McKey, Rony Seikaly, Brian Shaw and Charles Smith were huge names at the collegiate level.

The 12 travelled to Spain to play for coach Lute Olsen.

USA boss Olsen coached Kerr and Elliott at the University of Arizona.

Of all the players, one that really captured the imagination of the Spaniards was Bogues who, standing 1.59m (5'3") tall, proved that basketball was not only a game for tall men.

The Spanish media nicknamed him ‘la Chispa Negra’ (the black spark).

Spain had a squad famous players, too.

There were basketball icons Juan San Epifanio Ruiz, Fernando Martin, Fernando Romay, Candido Sibilio Huguesis, Jose Maria Margall and Jordi Villacampa.

In 1986, Brazil had their scoring machine Oscar Schmidt while Antonello Riva and Walter Magnifico represented Italy.

In a tremendous Yugoslavia squad that won bronze were Drazen Petrovic, Vlade Divac and Drazen Dalipagic and with the runners-up, the Soviet Union, were Sasha Volkov, Tiit Sokk, Valdis Valters, Rimas Kurtinaitis, Valdemaras Chomicius and the great Arvydas Sabonis.

Israel had a fine team with their basketball hero Mickey Berkowitz and Canada had Jay Triano, who was recently named head coach of the national team for the second time.

As had always been the case at World Championships, there were surprises in 1986.

The biggest occurred when Argentina took on the United States and won their showdown, 74-70, in the first game of the Semi-Final Round.

Carlos Romano (18pts) and Esteban Camisassa (17pts) were among five Argentinians to hit double-digits that game.

The result suggested that the Americans would once again be denied in their quest for gold.

Needing to win their next two games to maintain hope of claiming a spot on the podium, the USA defeated Canada and Yugoslavia.

The United States then thumped Brazil, 96-80, to reach the Final before edging the Soviets, 87-85, to claim gold.

The Americans almost suffered a late collapse as the Soviets, led by Sabonis, hit back from a 78-60 deficit with 7:45 left to trail by just two 50 seconds from the end.

Kenny Smith scored on a daring drive over the giant Sabonis with 15 seconds to go to extend the lead 87-83 and the Americans held on.

While the USA are number one in the FIBA Ranking and likely to be favorites to win the inaugural FIBA Basketball World Cup in 2014, they will take nothing for granted.

Since that gold-medal triumph in Spain in 1986, the Americans have won just two of a possible six World Championships, with their latest coming a couple of years ago in Turkey.

The break-ups of the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia occurred several years after 1986.

While it removed two behemoths from the international game, the end result was that international basketball had more competitive national sides.

Of them, Lithuania (5), Russia (6), Serbia (12), Slovenia (14) and Croatia (16) are currently in the top 20 of the FIBA Rankings.

Other national teams became stronger after 1986.

Greece, whose Nikos Galis led the World Championship 26 years ago in scoring at 33.7 points per game, fired his team to gold at the European Championship the following year.

The Greeks also won the European title in 2005 and silver at the 2006 World Championship.

Both Spain and Argentina have had golden generations, with the former moving from strength to strength since winning the world title in 2006 and the latter reaching the top of the podium two years before that at the Athens Olympics.

The MVP of Spain’s world title win in 2006, Los Angeles Lakers superstar Pau Gasol, will be 34 when the World Cup is held.

He recently sounded like a player who intends to take part.

"After the European Championship in Madrid in 2007, our enthusiasm for the World Cup is at its maximum,” he said.

Spain finished runners-up to Russia in 2007.

“Let's see if we can win it (the World Cup),” Gasol said.

"It's going to be a very special tournament and to play it at home gives us an added motivation.

“I hope that we will all arrive in good health and with a lot of will to face this new challenge."

FIBA