USA did sweep the golds, though the Men just barely so, as I somewhat expected. There was some attempt to gin up controversy over claims by Kobe and other's on this years team that they could beat the hagiofied 92 team. But I don't think all that many people bought into it. (That is, bought into the media encouragement to be shocked or outraged by such audacity. Most people seemed to have accepted the claims as the meaningless 'Perfect Confidence' boilerplate they were. Then again, the talent gap between the two squads isn't near great as that of the Mavs over the Warriors in 07.)
It's inevitable, I suppose, that the quality of the world game will only better and better in the future. So that eventually the US men will find themselves in the same position as the Brazillian soccer team; still enjoying enough of a talent advantage to always be the favorite, yet faced with such a depth of good teams that not even the favorite has anything close to a 51% chance of winning the brass. This is bound to happen while I'm still alive, and I like to think that I'm enough of an evil left-winger to accept that this is no threat to my own Purity of Essence. Still it's going to feel very strange to see USA basketball lose on the reg. Very weird indeed.
No comments:
Post a Comment