BEIJING - So, Coach K. Your opening game in the Olympics is against China. Would that be analagous to some poor first-round NCAA Tournament foe of yours being forced to play Duke in, say, Raleigh or Greensboro?
"No," decides Mike Krzyzewski. "Cameron."
That, of course, would be Cameron Indoor Stadium, home to the Duke Blue Devils since 1941.
Now, it's not as if China is a medal favorite or anything like that. The Chinese have a nice frontcourt, anchored by national flag-bearer Yao Ming, who may or may not be fully recovered from the foot fracture that brought a premature end to his season with the Houston Rockets (like he'd tell anyone if were hurting). But the Chinese have yet to develop a top-quality guard. Come on, the US may face some formidable opposition here in its quest for gold, but China?
I think it's great we're playing China in our first game," says Coach K. "I want our guys to feel it, to understand what it means to play someone with the ultimate nationalistic spirit on their home court. Who you are normally is not necessarily who you will be that night. You can watch them on tape, but it won't be the same."
China's No. 1 sports passion is table tennis, but in terms of team games, basketball is No. 1 and getting more popular with each passing day. It can easily be argued that this match with the Americans is the most eagerly anticipated team athletic event in Chinese history. Today's game will have an almost unimaginably large domestic television audience, and it's safe to say that the joint known as the Olympic Basketball Stadium will be rockin'.
For those of you who labor under the delusion that America is still the epicenter of world basketball, be advised that the United States of America is champion of nothing. The last American international triumph involving our top professionals came in the Sydney Olympics eight years ago, and even that was a huff-and-puff affair in which we were life and death with Lithuania and twice struggled with France.
In the two World Championships and the Olympics that followed, we lost seven games and did no better than win a bronze medal. The reigning Olympic champion is Argentina. The reigning world champion is Spain. In neither case is basketball the biggest sport in that country. America may be the birthplace of basketball, but it has been humbled.
America had long been in the habit of throwing together collections of All-Stars and hoping they'd figure out a way to coexist as they annihilated inferior international foes on the basis of raw talent. But a funny thing happened on the way to our expected golds - the Dream Team.
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