Deliver to Chris Sheridan one pat on the back: Team USA has fallen in the Worlds.

Not to Argentina. Not to Spain. To Greece. The US didn't even get to the co-powers of the world. (Though, I'd argue Spain is really the world's hoops superpower, along with the US. Spain has now beat the Argentines 10 straight times. It's like Spain is the Kings and Argentina is the Clippers. Only Argentina doesn't shower.)

Now the US has to a) play for third against Manu's squad, and b) qualify for the Olympics. Of course, they will qualify. But still. Sort of embarassing.

This is not a disaster, though. I'd much rather the team lose this summer than two summers from now. Yeah, I wanted them to win, and Lord knows they wanted to win. But if this gives them more incentive to build relationships, more incentive to keep the program-building up year-round, then that's fantastic. If this team wins gold in Beijing, no one will remember 2006.

Update [2006-9-1 11:22:17 by TZ]: J.E. Skeets live-blogged the proceedings, which I haven't gotten a chance to watch yet. Henry Abbott has very extensive thoughts. And I bet Coach David Thorpe will have some great insight later today.