SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico – The team that US Basketball has assembled for the last two FIBA AmeriCup qualifiers knew they would be together for just one week.
The players made the most of this time.
Ra’Shad James scored 21 points, and the US finished AmeriCup 6-0, beating Mexico 96-75 on Saturday. Brandon Bass scored 12 points for the Americans, who beat the Mexicans 33-12 in the 3-point range.
“Any player would want to be part of such a situation,” James said. “You had guys who bought into the system very quickly … a bunch of disinterested guys.”
Joe Johnson finished with 11 points, nine rebounds and seven assists for the United States, William Davis added 10 points and Isaiah Thomas – looking for a return to the NBA – had nine points in 20 minutes.
AmeriCup is the championship for the nations of the FIBA region of America; The USA has won it seven times in nine previous chances and entered the two games in San Juan knowing that it already has the berth in the September 2022 tournament insured. However, he ended up beating the Bahamas and Mexico with 37 points combined in those games.
Edgar Garibay finished with 19 points and nine rebounds for Mexico.
It didn’t take long for the United States to make Saturday’s game a break.
Mexico was in the 14-10 range after the first six minutes and it was about the last time they had any angry realistic hopes. The Americans went into a 13-0 run to go to 17 at the end of the opening quarter, Dakota Mathias made a 3-pointer with 3:13 left in the half to make it 53-24 and the result was never .
“We really represent something bigger than us and we did that,” said American coach Joe Prunty. “We talked about how we had a standard to support.”
Prunty also enjoyed how disinterested the Americans were, even quoting Thomas for giving a few minutes on Saturday so others could play more.
“The way they represented each other, the way they represented Team USA, was an amazing job by [USA Basketball men’s national team director] Sean Ford and the staff to form a team like this, “Prunty said.
The United States improved to 11-1 against Mexico in the top FIBA or FIBA Americas games.
It took exactly one year for the US to qualify for the AmeriCup; the Americans opened the process by winning 83-70 in San Juan against Puerto Rico on February 20, 2020 and this would be the closest game they had in the six-game series.
The coronavirus pandemic forced the last two sets of qualifying windows with two bubble games, first in Indianapolis in November, when the US occupied its AmeriCup berth and now these games in San Juan. Mike Fratello coached the US in the first two windows, Prunty took over these games, and the Americans put together three different lists for the three sets of games.
AmeriCup’s qualification was the first step in a long process towards making the ground for the 2023 Basketball World Cup and the 2024 Paris Olympics. Only the host nations – the Philippines, Japan and Indonesia for the next World Cup and France for the 2024 Olympic Games – automatically qualifies for these tournaments. All other nations must complete a number of other tournaments, such as AmeriCup, to create those pitches.