[USNA74]

Looks like they lost this game at the free throw line and nowhere else. 59% is horrible at their level.

[nativist]

If the US hit four more free throws they would have missed 10, same as the Greeks and still would have lost. I am sick of excuses for the US teams. We dope up our sprinters and our basketball team has the very best we have to offer and we lose and make excuses. The heavyweight division in boxing is dominated by ex-Soviet boxers, all four champs are ex-Soviet and we make excuses. Even before that the champ was British. Tennis? No. Baseball? No. Soccer? of course not. Basketball? No. Golf? Yes. Swimming? Yes.

The very idea of losing used to be hateful to all real Americans (Patton at least in the movie), now just get paid and go shopping.

[burzum]

If the US team shot free throws like they normally did (~70%), they might have won. Instead they shot free throws like they did when they played Italy (56% for that game). Another point that I failed to mention earlier is that the US team depended to much upon their ability to steal the ball from their opponents. This didn't work against Greece. They had 4 steals total in this game. For many games they had 15-20 steals in a game. Even against the harder opponents the US team typically had almost 10 steals. But this game they were evenly matched: 4-4 in steals.

Greece obviously studied hard on how to beat the US team from the earlier US-Germany match: don't allow steals, don't let the US team near the basket, and watch them flounder on free throws and field goals.