Women win Gold

Things went perfectly as expected as the U.S. Women were just too deep, too quick, too good for Australia this morning (evening in Beijing). The women beat Australia 92-65 behind 15 points from a perfect Kara Lawson (5-5 FG, 1-1 from 3FG, 4-4 FT) and 14 from Lisa Leslie and Candace Parker, and 13 from rapidly emerging Sylvia Fowles (who led the U.S. in scoring this tournament at 13.4 ppg). Speaking of perfect, Leslie finishes up the tournament as she has the last four Olympics, having not lost a single game. Tears flowed from the U.S. Captain after the game, showing the emotion of someone who is going out on top, most likely having played in her last Olympics. For much of this tournament Leslie has deferred to some of the younger players, but today she was an important part of a team that was explosive as ever on offense, going over 90 points yet again. Leslie was 7-9 from the field while grabbing 7 boards as well. That makes it 33 Olympic wins in a row for Leslie and for the USA Basketball…..Wow!

Much like their male counterparts, Team USA was just too deep for Australia, who never really were in the game. Australia was held to 25% shooting from the field, including rough games from Harrower (2-14 FG) Batkovic (3-14 FG) and even from WNBA MVP Lauren Jackson (5-14 FG). The U.S. team has depth that was valuable in so many ways. Foul trouble to Taurasi and Leslie didn’t slow the U.S. one bit as players like Lawson, Fowles and Parker stepped right in. Depth kept the U.S. fresh as they pressured AUS with physically and mentally draining defense. Depth allowed for players to have off games while being picked up by one of their teammates on any particular day. Taurasi was brilliant in the semifinal game exploding for 21 pts. but today she had nothing going (but foul trouble), making only 1 shot from the field today. They didn’t need her offense today as the rest of the team picked up the slack to shoot 59% from the field. Starters and bench players were equally as impressive this tournament (today the U.S. bench outscored Australia 59-11).

The Russia women won the bronze defeating host nation China. The hoop crazy Chinese had to have been proud of their showing for both the 4th place women and the men, who were Medal Play qualifiers.

In attendance at the Gold Medal game today were many members of The Redeem Team, who have their shot at their own Gold Medal game tomorrow at 2:30 a.m. EST. The U.S. men will face Spain who, according to all early reports, will be without their star point guard Jose Calderon. Even with Calderon, this was going to take an almost perfect game from Spain and a poor game from the U.S. in order for Spain to have a chance. Now that Calderon is out, I don’t think there is any chance that Spain can win.

Speaking of The Redeem Team…..Much has been made about who is better, The Redeem Team or The Dream Team. This kind of question (and the inevitable long winded ensuing argument) has always bothered me. I won’t dignify this discussion by spending more than one sentence on it:

You can never, ever judge or compare fairly teams or individuals from different eras.

Tomorrow morning will be my last day here at the NBCSports.com studios in Stamford, CT. I have very much enjoyed my time covering my first Olympic basketball tournament. The technology that we were able to bring you was incredible. I can’t imagine how I made it through life as a kid without live streamed video coverage with live text commentary of every U.S. basketball game on demand for your immediate viewing by a click of a mouse. Lord knows I would have been right in front of the computer watching and reading every minute of it. I feel very privileged to be the one who was behind the computer providing that commentary to some young kid out there destined someday to be a player or a coach or a broadcaster himself or herself. Thank you NBCSports.com and NBCOlympics.com for giving me this once in a lifetime job. Thanks to Fox Sports Net for allowing me and encouraging me to moonlight on this project.

I will be back on the blog tomorrow with a recap of the Gold Medal and Bronze Medal games for the Men.

Until then, congrats again to Team USA Captain Lisa Leslie and the rest of the Gold Medal winning women’s basketball team. Well done, ladies!