WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP
INDIANAPOLIS
2002
INDIANAPOLIS
Sixty-two matches to be held between sixteen teams split up into four different groups made up the first World Championship to be held on US territory. Greece, Italy, Lithuania, Australia, Nigeria, Japan, Senegal and South Korea were the eight teams from the previous edition that failed to qualify, although there was little change among the favourites: on one side were the hosts who despite absences either through injury( Kidd, Allen …) or lack of interest( the great O ' Neal, Bryant, McGrady, Garnett …) faced the tournaments with great expectations of regaining the gold that they had lost in Athens’ 98 in the aftermath of the NBA owners ' shutout.
Only three of the defending champions( Bodiroga, Tomasevic and Drobnjak) were reappearing for Yugoslavia, the other main contender for the title who came with a team full of NBA players( Divac Stojokovic, Radmanovic and the above mentioned Drobnjak) and ten of the twelve team members were over two metres tall.
According to the system of the competition only one team per group would be eliminated in the first phase of the competition( three matches), these would then meet in a knockout system for th th
the 13 to 16 places. The others would then regroup( the first three in groups A and B would go to Group E; and the first three from groups C and D to Group F) in the next round( three matches), with the results from the first round being carried forward. From then on the competition took on the habitual knockout format with quarter-finals, semi-finals and the final. In brief, nine matches in eleven days, which had the advantage of playing all the matches in a reduced space of time as the two venues were separated by no more than a ten-minute walk, and the main hotels( 20,000 places in the city) were also close by. We are referring to the Conseco Fieldhouse( home to the Indiana Pacers and Fever with a capacity of 18,345) and the RCA dome( whose 33,475 seats hosted the NCAA finals of 1991, 1997 and 2000), to which you could gain access by either becoming one of the 2,500 registered volunteers or by buying one of the tickets priced from $ 10 to $ 190.
A US DEFEAT IS POSSIBLE
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Germany( 65-67 in the 27 minute of the match), and China(+ 12 in the first quarter), both far from being among the best teams in the tournament, lost no time in putting into practice what was becoming a widespread idea in the competition: the USA could be beaten. If this had not been the case David Sterne would certainly not postponed his holiday to Milan With regard to the local public, attendances were low( 2,000 spectators in the debut against Algeria).
This was the first time that such a thing had happened( apart from the aforementioned parenthesis of four years previously) since 1992 when the USA instigated the“ Dream Team”, with a balance of 53-0. However, the current version( Paul Pierce, Ben Wallace, Jermaine O ' Neal, Antonio Davis, Michael Finley, Shawn Marion, Elton Brand, Andre Miller, Reggie Miller, Jay Williams
245 FUNDACIÓN PEDRO FERRÁNDIZ