WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP ARGENTINA 1950
Argentina finished the competition unbeaten. In addition to the aforementioned Oscar“ Millito” Furlong, undoubtedly the MVP of the tournament and Ricardo“ Negro” Gonzalez, guard Del Vecchio deserves a special mention. He played an extraordinary game against USA scoring 14 points. The decisive match against the North Americans now forms part of the history of the beautiful Luna Park. On the night of November 3 the Buenos Aires spectators created an unbelievable atmosphere, never before experienced in a basketball arena. The seats were full of passionate fans several hours before the match started and after the emphatic victory over USA( 64-50) they poured onto the hardwood. At the same time on the famous Corrientes Street a human tide filled the Argentinean night with songs, laughter and tears of emotion. A short time later those tears of joy turned to tears of sorrow as their main stars were disqualified from future tournaments for accepting a small payment for playing on the team. Argentina relished its first world basketball victory.
As in following editions of the World Championships, the United States entered a below strength team, failed to win gold and went home with a silver medal. The USA severely underrated this competition for several years and this cost them dearly. Their record was one of failure rather than success. Due to the expansion of the NBA the national team took young, inexperienced players to the championship. Even though they only lost to Argentina they had problems against Egypt( 34- 32), Chile( 37-33) in the first phase and Brazil( 45-42). In the final they had no chance against the excellent, highly-motivated Argentineans. To give an example only one of their players, Robert Williams, won a place in the NBA and he did not make much of an impact; 24 games in two seasons with the Minneapolis Lakers.
The positive surprise was Chile and the disappointments came from Europe. Chile won the bronze medal after an emphatic victory over Brazil, placed third in the London Olympics( 51-40). The results on the last day, Brazil ' s 59-27 win over France and Chile ' s 43-40 defeat to Egypt made no difference to the final placing.
The European teams did not rise to the occasion; the long, exhausting journey to Argentina was possibly the reason for their lack of competitiveness( at least this was the Spanish excuse) but the fact was that their performances were pitiful. Only one of the four European entries, Egypt( it must be remembered that Egypt took part as reigning European champions despite their geographical position) put up a decent show by beating Chile and France and creating problems for USA who only beat them by two points. Egypt finished in fifth spot, their best achievement in this type of competition to date.
As for the rest, it can be summed up in one word, terrible. France who won silver at the London Olympics was a shadow of its former self. They reached the final phase after beating Ecuador and Peru( both in overtime) and then they ran out of fuel. Five matches and five defeats in the final phase of the tournament, all of them emphatic apart from the 28-31 loss against Egypt. In fact the half time score was the lowest in World Championship history, 10-9.
174 FUNDACIÓN PEDRO FERRÁNDIZ