Well, things could have gone a lot worse for Jay Wright's 2007 Pan Am Games squad that finished fifth at the Games with a 3-2 record. The reality of not medaling set in earlier in the week and the team showed some resiliency by winning it final three (seemingly meaningless) contests.
Just a quick update on the Pan Am Games which are taking place in Rio De Janiero and include a team of the United State's best college players.
Coach Jay Wright's squad is 0-2 in preliminary round play and the team built for International play has not been able to transition in Rio with any consistency.
Team USA can't hit from beyond the arc as illustrated by a Game 1 14 percent effort from 3-point land (3 of 21) and 35 percent (8 of 23) in Game 2.
HAVERFORD, Pa. -- Bryce Taylor (Oregon) and Josh Carter (Texas A&M) were the final two cuts of the 2007 Team USA Pan Am Games squad, it was announced this afternoon.
The 30-player trials had been trimmed to 14 on Saturday night and the final two cuts came today, following a practice session at Haverford College outside of Philadelphia.
HAVERFORD, Pa. -- What did we learn after three days on the Main Line at Camp Wright on the outskirts of the Losses 10,000 city?
We learned that Eric Maynor (VCU) doesn't just shine in March, that Roy Hibbert (Georgetown) may have cost himself Draft position by not joining ex-teammate Jeff Green in the 2007 NBA proceedings and that Jay Wright, all of the sudden, became one of the elite coaches in college hoops.
Without further ado we present to you the "Hang Time" Haverford Half-Dozen: Six Observations (and Several Booms and Busts) from the 2007 Pan Am Game Trials:
Just before 10:30 a.m. EST on Sunday, the USA Basketball website confirmed the unofficial list we have been reporting (below).
USA Basketball has yet to release the Pan Am Games team, but Hang Time has learned the roster looks a whole lot like the following. This is an unofficial list, compiled by Hang Time after some serious lobby time at the team hotel on Saturday night, of the 14 selections to the Pan Am Games for Team USA. The official list will be posted at USA Basketball shortly. Two more cuts will be made this week to bring the roster to the required 12.
After a 9:30 p.m. ET meeting on Saturday night the Pan Am games roster of 14 -- which will need to be cut to 12 over the next few days -- was revelaed to the 29 remaining camp participants.
While Hang Time has been sworn to secrecy on the list of 14, we can confirm that Georgetown's Roy Hibbert, Memphis's Joey Dorsey, VCU's Eric Maynor and Oregon's Maarty Leunen are among the dozen-plus-two chosen by the collegiate selection committee chaired by Jim Boeheim.
HAVERFORD, Pa. -- After a sluggish final session where the players were showing the effects of three straight days of double sessions, the evaluation proces is now over for Team USA. Selection committee members are currently meeting in a room upstairs from the court and a 9:30 meeting is scheduled at the team hotel to inform the players of the final cuts. (There is still a chance that 14 players will be chosen with two more cuts to come later in the week.)
"I think guys are beat down a bit," said Jay Wright. "But we saw what we needed."
HAVERFORD, Pa. -- We have reached the final evaluation session of the trials and the players are going through stretching and light running before the start of scrimmaging. There are probably still one or two spots up for grabs, but it's likely that at least 10 of the spots have been filled. We'll need to keep an eye on some match-ups to try and get into the committee's head and see which players they are placing opposite one another. If there are bubble guys at the same position, a good way to determine who may have a better skill set is to place those players head to head against each other.
HAVERFORD, Pa. -- We're into the nitty gritty portion of the three-day evaluation period and as committee chairman Jim Boeheim predicted yesterday, the outside shots are starting to fall more and we're getting a better indication of who can really stroke it.
HAVERFORD, Pa. -- He laughs the way Jim Boeheim has been seen laughing on more and more occasions since his own personal Mardi Gras in 2003 at the Final Four. The truth is, Boeheim probably laughed quite a bit before Carmelo delivered the Dance trophy to The Dome. It's just that we notice it more now and contrast it to the whine and scowl he wore for all those years of near-misses and woulda-shoulda-couldas.
HAVERFORD, Pa. -- The camp is gaining more of a pronounced rythym as the third session winds down and it's a good bet that committee members are zeroing in on 18-20 players that will be worthy of the most looks in the remaining two sessions before cutdown day on Sunday.
HAVERFORD, Pa. -- We could very well have just seen the solidification of one of the guard spots on the eventual 12 man Rio roster as UNC's Wayne Ellington displayed the skills that made him one of the nation's top freshmen last season.
With his White team trailing 22-21 with under 30 seconds left in the game, Ellington calmly sank a 3-pointer with 10 seconds left in the 15 minute game giving his side a 24-22 win over the Blues. Ellington was smooth throughout and despite the thought that upper classmen will dominate the final roster, the committee will have a hard time passing up the USA basketball-experienced sophomore-to-be.
HAVERFORD, Pa. -- Players are going through light stretching and running in preparation for the third session of camp. We are doing the very same in order to be loose and nimble for live-blog duties. Our dedication knows no boundaries.
We can probably expect to see some trends emerging after this session and hopefully Jay Wright will begin to give some more hints as to what the make-up of his team will probably look like. He has already said there won't be room for all that many big men (after, we're guessing, the Big Three of Roy Hibbert, DJ White and Joey Dorsey) and he also indicated that the point guards he would envision for this team would need to be multi-dimensional (ala Drew Neitzel).
HAVERFORD, Pa. -- Southern Illinois' Randal Falker has made his name in the college ranks as a defensive specialist. Virginia Commonwealth's Eric Maynor made his name with his jumper that knocked Duke out of the first round of this past year's NCAA Tournament.
But at Haverford college this week, the pair's names are barely noteworthy on a Pan Am Trials roster that includes marquee talents from the nation's elite programs. (Depending on your classification of the Atlantic 10, there is a third mid-major guy, St. Joe's Ahmad Nivins, who had a nice morning session and is getting attention from the Philly press corps. He is a LONG, LONG shot to make the squad.)
HAVERFORD, Pa. -- Players are going through free-throw shooting drills to end this spirited second session of camp. The highlight of these two hours came at the very end of a full court scrimmage where Kansas's Mario Chalmers threw a pinpoint alley-oop through traffic to high rising Alonzo Gee of Alabama for a bucket at the buzzer.
HAVERFORD, Pa. -- We're at the midway point of the second session and wth much of the morning drilling and scrimmaging complete, we've now got 10 minute, full-court games underway on the main court. At the far end of the gym, a group of about ten players is being run through drills with Jay Wright.
HAVERFORD, Pa. -- Welcome back to the green, leafy, pristine campus of Haverford College where the second session of tryouts for the 2007 Pan Am Games is underway.
On the near court, half-court, closest to the Hang Time perch, head coach Jay Wright and assistant Mark Gottfried are working with about ten players on some zone offesne and defense. The group includes Duke's Jon Scheyer, Wisconsin's Brian Butch and Alabama's Alonzo Gee. At the opposite end, assistant James Jones is running another group through the same drills. That group includes Syracuse's Eric Devendorf, UNC's Wayne Ellington and Indiana's DJ White. A third group is at the far end of the gym, working on similar zone principles and that is where we find the easy-to-spot Roy Hibbert along with Duke's DeMarcus Nelson and Maryland's James Gist.
HAVERFORD, Pa. -- A good vibe here on the Main Line in the 'burbs of Philly as Team USA's Camp Wright finished up Day One of Pan Am Game Trials. A gathering of about 50 NBA Scouts, media and hangers-on witnessed the first session of camp, the start of which was delayed by the orchestrating of the Trials Team photo. (Threes, Fours and Fives in the back, Ones, Twos, Coaches, and Managers in the front! How hard can it be, people?)
HAVERFORD, Pa. -- The trials are being conducted with what ESPN.com's Andy Katz (seated to the right of the Hang Time perch, along with SI.com's Luke Winn and the grand-daddy of us all, Dick "Hoops" Weiss) has termed a "mustard yellow" international ball. The regulation FIBA ball appears to be the Penalty 7.4. The panels are slightly different on the ball being used with alternating yellow and brown sections.
HAVERFORD, Pa. -- Welcome to the campus of Division III Haverford College where the Team USA, Pan American Games trials are just underway. Thirty-two collegiate players from around the nation are gathered for the tryouts, with a 16-member team set to be announced sometime after the final session on Saturday afternoon (or Sunday morning). That 16 will be trimmed to 12 Thursday before the team leaves for DC in advacne of its trip to Rio.
