World Championship Day 6 - Scola dominates again

Great day for White basketball fans as the uber-athletic New Zealanders take care of the Afro-French squad, driving their skill home with a last second shot sending the French down to the 4th seed. It was also nice to see Australia take care of Angola. Nothing like the World Championships to do a lot of damage to the myths of Black athletic superiority!

Luis Scola wraps up tournament MVP award with another incredible performance. No one else is even near his level. He is an artist with the basketball.



Luis Scola, PF (ARG) -- 32p, 7r
Kirk Penney, SG (NZL) -- 25p (15 shots), 3a'
Tim Pleiss, C (GER) -- 23p (12 shots), 9r
O Daghles, G (JOR) -- 22p, 6a
Oguz Savas, (TRK) -- 20p (12 shots), 4r, 2a
JJ Barea, PG (PR) -- 19p, 7a
Rudy Fernadez, SG (ESP) -- 19p, 5r
Dusko Savanovic, PF (SRB) -- 19p, 5r, 2s
Fran Vasquez, PF (ESP) -- 19p (9 shots), 5r, 4b -- in 16 minutes!!!
Goran Dragic, SG (SLO) -- 18p (10 shots), 6r, 2a
Semih Erden, C (TRK) -- 18p (11 shots), 12r, 3b, 3a
Nenad Krstic, C (SRB) -- 18p (10 shots), 8r, 3a
Timofey Mosgov, C (RUS) -- 18p, 4r
M Machado, SF(BRA) -- 18p (5 shots!!!), 3r
Omer Asik, C (TRK) -- 17p, 13r, 2a, 2b
Renaldas Seibutis, SG (LTH) -- 17p (9 shots), 3a, 2s
M Gecevicius, SG (LTH) -- 16p, 4r, 2a
M Teodosic, SG (SRB) -- 16p, 4a, 4r, 3s
Carlos Delfino, SG (ARG) -- 13p, 7r, 4s, 1b
P Prigioni, PG (ARG) -- 13p, 9a, 5s, 3r

World Championships Day 3 - Luis Scola

Kevin Love gets buried behind Odom, playing only 5 minutes. What a joke, this is why I do not support USA basketball.

Splitter, PF (BRA) - 13p, 10r in nice game against USA. Too bad Varejao did not play, but he will be back in action for the next game. Watch out for Brazil in the medal rounds.

All-White Argentina of course destroyed all-Black Angola. The African sides are very weak, as usual.

Other White stars today (only half the teams playing today):

Luis Scola, PF (ARG) -- 32p (21 shots), 8r, 3st
Hamed Haddadi, C (IRI) - 23p, 13r, 4b
Carlos Delfino, GS (ARG) -- 22p (12 shots), 5r, 4a, 4st
Dusko Savonovic, PF (SRB) -- 21p (10 shots), 7r
Marko Keselj, F (SRB) - 21p (10 shots), in 15 min.
Kosta Perovic, C (SRB) -- 20p (11 shots), 6r, 2b
Roko UKIC, PG (CRO) -- 20p (14 shots), 7a
Marko POPOVIC, PG (CRO) -- 17p (7 shots) in 15 min.
Marko TOMAS, SG (CRO) -- 17p (8 shots), 4a
Aleks Maric, C (AUS) -- 15p (9 shots), 5r
Uros Slokar, PF/C (SLO) -- 15p (8 shots), 6r
Jaka LAKOVIC, PG (SLO) -- 15p (9 shots), 4a
Goran Dragic, SG (SLO) -- 14p (10 shots), 4r, 4a

World Championships Day One - Kirk Penney

Of course, the big news of the day was the shocking loss of all-White Spain to the heavily Black squad from France. France actually started a White player at guard, who then got a grand total of 8 minutes playing time. We have seen that pattern of "starting only to sit on the bench" far too often in the NBA. It is hard to know what motivates it.

There were a number of incredible performances by White players at the Worlds today.

Kirk Penney, SG (NZL) -- 37p (20 shots and 16-20 FTs)
Linus Kleiza, SF (LTH)-- 27p (15 shots), 8r
Carolos DelFino, SG (ARG)-- 27p (18 shots), 8r
JJ Barea, PG (PUR) -- 25p (17 shots), 4a, 4r
Aleks Maric, C (AUS)-- 23p (14 shots), 9r
Derek Anderson, PF (AUS) -- 22p (10 shots), 9 r, 4a
Aleksandar Rasic, SG (SRB) -- 22p (9 shots), in 18 minutes
Ioannis Bourousis, C (GRK) -- 21p (12 shots), 8r
Luis Scola, PF (ARG) -- 20p (12 shots), 4r
Guilherme Giovannoni, PF (BRZ) -- 17p (10 shots), 7r
JC Navarro, SG (ESP) -- 17p (13 shots)
Ersan İlyasova, PF (TRK) -- 17p (8 shots), 8r, 3a, in 21 min.
H. Haddadi, C (IRN) -- 16p, 9r, 5 blocks
Goran Dragic, SG(SLO) -- 16p (9 shots), 8a, 5r
Marko Popovic, PG (CRO) -- 16p (8 shots)
Levon Kendall, PF (CAN) -- 11r (4 offensive)
Kevin Love (USA) -- 10r in 11 minutes.
Marcelo Huertas, PG (BRZ) -- 10p (5 shots), 9a in 22 min.
A. Ponkrashov, PG (RUS) -- 10p (5 shots), 11a

World Championship friendly updates

Greece is looking great. Last weekend they beat Croatia by 9, Germany by 28, and Russia by 38. Nice addition they found in former Florida Gator Nick Calathes, who led them in scoring.

--In a surprise to me, Serbia ended up beating Turkey fairly easily 83-70, led by Nenad Krstic.

--Angola, the African champions, got crushed over the weekend by Brazil 59-89. So much for African basketball superiority!

--Germany is not looking strong. They always have a great defense, but they are not getting any scoring punch, and appear to be stuck at the lower levels of the comp: losing by one to Croatia, winning by 3 over Russia (also, Russia beat Croatia by 1).

--Puerto Rico, lost the best of three with Argentina over the last week, although they played without Carlos Arroyo and Renaldo Balkman (and the last game without their big man Ramos). They lost the first game in overtime by five, then won by 7, but lost the final in the series by 13.

--Argentina played their three games against P.R. without Oberto and Nocioni, and the first two without Prigioni, who will all be with them for the Worlds. Luis Scola continues to play like a monster, scoring 33 in their final victory over P.R. Scola may be the best player in the tournament at the Worlds.

--Spain has beaten three quality opponents fairly easily in the past week, still looking like the tourny favorites: beating Ivory Coast by 15, Lithuania by 21, and Slovenia by 20. JC Navarro, Rudy Fernandez, and Marc Gasol look to be the keys to their success.

--Lithuania beat Slovenia by 3, considered a slight upset the way they have respectively been playing lately, led by Kleiza and Javtokas. Dragic continues to pour in points for Slovenia.

--New Zealand squeeked out a victory over Iran 69-68, led by Kirk Penney's 28. In their 71-76 loss to Serbia, Penney poured in 34.

--Iran now has Hadaddi in action, and are a very tough squad with him on the floor.

White of the Night: Steve Blake

Steve Blake, where have you been??? Showing off his skill and aggressive play tonight for Portland: 20p (8 shots, 10-11 FT) - 5 reb - 4 a - 2 stl -- 32 min

Rudy continues his solid play, rising to the top of the ROY chart: 16p (10 shots) - 3 a - 3 stl -- 32 min

Hedo goes off the way it is supposed to be done: 35p (21 shots, 9-12 FT) - 4 reb - 3 a -- 42 min

Jeff Foster puts together a solid game: 15p (8 shots, 7-9 FT) - 5 reb - 3 a - 4 blk -- 36 min

Kapono gets some decent minutes tonight to show his stuff: 14p (10 shots) - 6 a - 4 reb -- 29 min

Marc plays a solid game against a monster Sun's frontcourt: 15p (11 shots) - 5 reb - 27 min

Quinn puts together a tight game, leading the Heat in plus-minus: 9p (4 shots, 6-6 FT) -- 21 min

Dragic plays to perfection in his 13 backup minutes: 8 points on 2 shots, going 2-2 FG and 4-4 FTs.

Robert Swift continues to build momentum, playing for over 12 minutes tonight and showing his worth: 9p (4 shots) - 7 reb. Very nice production for such limited time, definitely earning more.

McRoberts finally gets off the bench, playing 10 minutes for the Pacers.

Goran Dragic shows promise

Goran Dragic (6'4 180 PG) is the rookie brought in to spell Steve Nash, and stepped into the spotlight tonight starting for the injured former MVP.

While not a great shooting night, scoring only 6 on seven shots, Dragic quietly put together a real gem of a game, and gave a nice glimpse of his skill and potential.

In over 30 minutes of play, Dragic picked up 7 assists, 5 rebounds, 3 steals, and 2 blocks, while only turning the ball over once. Goran also did a great job on his opponent at PG, Allen Iverson, who went only 1-6 and had 5 TOs.

All in all, a very solid game for a PG, especially a rookie, demonstrating his intelligence, versatility, and atheticism. We look forward to great things from the young Slovenian!