4-4 On Olympic Predictions

I seem to be on a roll!

Here are my Olympic basketball predictions and the actual results.

USA vs Australia
My prediction: USA 110, Australia 78
Actual Results:USA 119, Australia 86

Argentina vs Brazil
My prediction:Argentina 85, Brazil 82
Actual Results: Argentina 82, Brazil 77

Russia vs Lithuania
My prediction: Russia 80, Lithuania 75
Actual Results:  Russia 83, Lithuania 74

Spain vs France
My prediction: Spain 80, France 78 (OT)
Actual Results:  Spain 66, France 59

Watch out for my analysis and predictions in a while!

Olympic Basketball: Argentina 82, Brazil 77

The Golden Generation still has a little shine to them.

Luis Scola scored 17points, Manu Ginobili and Carlos Delfino had 16 each and Andres Nocioni added 12 as the Amazing Argentines made it to the semifinal round of the Olympic Basketball Tournament. Ginobili also grabbed 8 rebounds, Delfino had 7, Nocioni had 6 and Scola grabbed 4. 

Batum Punches Navarro: The Video

Link To Batum's Punch

Batum's punch!

Olympic Basketball: Spain 66, France 59.

With about 24seconds to go, Nicolas Batum charged Juan Carlos Navarro, swung a closed fist at the ball cradled at Navarro's waist and hit the Spaniard in a very sensitive place. The entire coliseum fell into shocked disbelief as the Frenchman then basically challenged the entire Spanish team to a fistfight. Tony Parker flung his plastic goggles to the ground and actually broke it.

That, in a nutshell, is the frustration each and every member of the French team must be feeling right now, after losing to Spain 59-66.

Olympic Basketball: France 37, Spain 34 (Haltime)

France leads Spain at halftime but only by three. They've done it through ball movement, good outside shooting (5-13 3FG) and dribble penetrations. Boris Diaw is taking his shots from outside, bring Marc Gasol beyond his comfort zone. Florent Pietrus is surprisingly effective while Parker has been so-so.

Spain found themselves down by 7-10 points several times because of horrendous outside shooting (2-11 3FG), loose interior defense and the inability to take advantage of the size advantage of Pau Gasol. Marc Gasol and Serge Ibaka. Still, the Spaniards have clawed back to within 3 points, largely through the efforts of Rudy Fernandez.

If Spain wants to win, they've got to make better use of the Gasol brothers on offense and Ibaka on defense. For France, Diaw has to keep hitting his shots and Parker needs to start making more.

Olympic Basketball: Russia 83, Lithuania 74

In the end, there was just too much Kirilenko.

Andrei Kirilenko wreaked havoc from opening tip to final buzer, scoring 19 points, grabbing 13 rebounds, dishing out 3 assists, blocking 3 shots, getting 3 steals with just 1 turnover in his most dominant performance yet. Timofey Mozgov was the surprise of the match, scoring 17 points and grabbing 4 rebounds.

Lithuania was led, surprisingly, by Rimantas Kaukenas, who scored 19 points and Darius Songaila, who had 15points. Having a bad offensive night was Linas Kleiza, who scored just 4 points on 1-7 FG.

Russia advances against the winner of the Spain-France match.

Olympic Basketball: Russia 32, Lithuania 27 (Halftime)

It's halftime and the Russian have led all throughout the first half. Andrei Kirilenko started out like a house on fire and leads Russia with 9points and 9 rebounds. Timofey Mozgov has been effective early on, with 6 points and 4 rebounds.

Olympic Basketball: A Preview Part II

Here's Part II of our Olympic basketball preview!

Spain vs France - This is interesting because it is one of two games featuring teams that are seemingly headed in opposite directions. Spain was expected to win their bracket but instead, lost to both Russia and (fortunately) Brazil. This put them in 3rd place, providential because it kept them well away from Team USA (until the gold medal match, that is). Did they tank? Hard to say but I don't think so. I find it hard to believe that the proud Spaniards (Gasol brothers, Ibaka, Navarro etc) would be willing parties to tanking. France, on the other hand, is playing excellently (after the rough loss to Team USA). They shocked Argentina to take the second seed but drew the tougher draw in the knock out semifinals. Parker, Batum and Diaw are playing really well and I'd say they are the current darlings of Olympic basketball (but only because Tunisia is out of the picture already).

Key match up - Tony Parker vs Juan Carlos Navarro, Boris Diaw/Ronnie Turiaf vs Pau/Marc Gasol. This game is particularly mouthwatering because we've got several sets of world class players squaring off. Parker has been phenomenal in the last few games and should be able to manhandle his man but Navarro is a wily international veteran who can shoot from long range. On the other side of the spectrum, the Gasol brothers are on a much higher level than Turiaf or Diaw but Turiaf is a legit defensive presence while Diaw has more weapons than either Gasol.

Prediction: Spain 80, France 78 (OT)

Olympic Basketball: A Preview Part I

So here we are at the quarterfinal round of the Basketball Tournament of the London Olympics. This is the start of the knock out phase so it's "loser-foes-home" time.

The matchups have been finalized so let's take a quick look at what we can expect tonight.

Olympic Boxing: The Barriga Incident

Of all the Filipino athletes in London, it was only Mark Anthony Barriga who even managed to give the Pinoys a glimmer of hope. After all, Barriga qualified on his own merit and he's a boxer, where we've had some success (most of our Olympic medals came from boxing)

And, faced with a familiar foe in Birzhan Zhakypov from Kazakhstan, Barriga seemed confident that he had things under control, despite his obvious height and reach disadvantage.

Oh-lympic Basketball: France On The Rise?

There's a team that rapidly rising to through the ranks of Olympic basketball and everyone's taking notice.

France, a team more known for its football players rather than its basketball players are suddenly making other traditional basketball powerhouses sit up and take notice.

Racism in the Olympics

Doesn't it seem odd that the world's most acclaimed sporting event for equality, brotherhood and sportsmanship has been the stage for high profile racism?

In this age of worldwide social media tools, there is nothing easier than to broadcast one's thoughts to a global audience.

Oh-lympic Basketball: US 98 vs France 71

For about one quarter, Team USA vs France was very much a basketball game. The French matched the intensity, fierceness and athleticism of the American to go down by only 1point, 22-21, in the first quarter. And then, the Americans turned it up another notch.

Kobe Bryant scored 5 straight points in the first 2mins of the second quarter as part of the 11-0 run by the Americans to put them up by 12points, which would be the closest France would get in the next 3quarters.

Oh-lympics:Basketball

Highlights of the exhibition match between Team USA and Spain.

Good news for the Americans: They won by 22.
Bad news for the Americans: They trailed by as much as 9 in the first quarter before Carmelo Anthony exploded for about 23 points off the bench in the first half. So they really needed an explosion just to pull away from the Spaniards.

 What's clear is that Team USA is still the best team in the world.

But this is also a team who barely held a 20 point lead against an old Argentina team and went down early to a big Spain team.

An upset is not out of the picture. Would it be Spain, Argentina, Brazil or even Lithuania delivering the shocker?

Oh-lympics: Swimming

There are, of course, several excellent swimmers competing in the London Games. None of them, however, are as recognizable as Michael Phelps, who holds the record of having the most gold medals in a single Olympic Games. He won 8 gold medals in the Beijing Olympics, besting the 7 gold medals Mark Spitz won in the 1972 Munich Games.

In the coming Games, Phelps will be hard pressed by competitors to keep his golden streak alive. He's basically competing in the same events he competed in during the Beijing Games but several opponents seem to have improved immensely in the last year to pose a realistic challenge to Phelps.

Let's go through some of those competitors.

Oh-lympics: Basketball

Highlights of the exhibition match between Argentina and Team USA.

Oh-lympics: Basketball

The team whom everyone expects to strike gold is, of course, Team USA.

But their path to Olympic gold has never been trickier than this year, even considering the 2004 debacle. That's because in 2004, no one really thought it was possible, until Argentina eliminated the Americans in the semifinal match.

This year, there are about 3 teams that have an actual shot at dethroning the Americans. Let's break them down in order of possibility.

Olympic Fever!

We are 5 days away from the opening of the 2012 London Olympics and Olympic fever is starting to take over the world.

With this in mind, I'll be spending the next five days talking about all the important Olympic issues.

Watch out for the thrice a day installments of... Oh-lympics!