Skip to main content

Olympics 2012: Tunisians impressed by Team USA, but looking to take step up ... - SportingNews.com

Published Tuesday, Jul 31, 2012 at 10:05 pm EDT Last updated 1 hour and 22 minutes ago

LONDON â€" Tunisian forward Makram Ben Romdhane can admit itâ€"that was pretty cool. Stepping onto the floor Tuesday night, shaking hands with LeBron James and Kobe Bryant, that is not something many basketball players get to do.

“Oh, it is very special to me, of course,” Ben Romdhane said after posting 22 points, 11 rebounds and four assists in Tunisia’s 110-63 loss to Team USA here at Olympic Park. “If you get to play against Team USA and those guys, it is something you remember. They just play so great, they are fast and strong, and they play without fouling.”

But Ben Romdhane pointed out that he’s already had the experience of going up against NBA players. He was on the team that faced the U.S. in the 2010 World Championshipâ€"in fact, Tunisia faced NBA players in all five of its games (they finished 0-5, ranked 24th of 24 teams in that tournament).

“We should be used to this be now,” Ben Romdhane said.

Maybe not, actually. Teams are not bowing down to Team USA the way they did to the Dream Team in the 1992 Olympics, but there was a certain amount of giddiness with the Tunisians following the game. Cameras caught one player, Mohamed Hadidane, taking off his shoe and asking Bryant to autograph it. In the tunnel on the way to the locker room, Tunisian coaches stopped players like Kevin Durant and Carmelo Anthony to ask for photos. The Americans obliged.

Still, for Ben Romdhane, clearly Tunisia’s best player, playing against NBA competition offers more than a chance for souvenirs. It is an opportunity for Africa, the one continent that has lagged behind South America, Europe, Asia and Australia in basketball development, to push its hoops growth.

“The difference between us and the other teams in the Olympic Games is bigâ€"the level of basketball in Africa and basketball in the NBA and Europe,” Ben Romdhane said. “I think it can be used to show everybody on our team how to play basketball. I don’t think we can play against these teams now. But maybe we play these games and we can build something for the future.”

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

NBA Rumors: LeBron James' Son Bronny Is on Draft Boards of 'Multiple Teams'

Chris Coduto/Getty Images Bronny James' USC team has struggled this season, but that reportedly hasn't stopped the NBA interest in the son of legend LeBron James. "When I talk to people around the league, he's on the draft boards of multiple teams," Shams Charania of The Athletic and Stadium reported Thursday: Charania noted teams around the league believe he is "further along" on the defensive side of the ball than the offensive side, which makes performances like Wednesday's all the more important. The USC freshman finished with 11 points, six assists and five rebounds while shooting 5-of-11 from the field in one of his best offensive showings of the season in a loss to Arizona. The only game that he scored more points in was a Dec. 30 loss to Oregon State when he finished with 15 on 6-of-11 shooting from the field. Perhaps most importantly, James played a season-high 30 minutes against the Wildcats on Wedn...
Post a Comment
Read more

What Happened to the Rivalry Between LeBron James and Carmelo Anthony? - Bleacher Report

They were two young stars with unique and special abilities on the basketball court. They had recently played in a high-attention scholastic contest against each other. They were both selected in the same draft. The LeBron James and Carmelo Anthony rivalry was supposed to be the best individual rivalry since Magic and Bird. But while the relationship between Bird and Johnson is dramatized in a new Broadway play , Anthony and James will meet for the 15th time in their careers and do so without much fanfare. James and Anthony first met in a USA developmental camp in 2001 . Much like how Johnson raved about Bird after they played together on a college All-Star team playing in an international tournament, James couldn’t stop talking about Anthony. The two squared off in a high school showcase game the following year that pitted the player regarded as the best senior in the country (Anthony) against the one that was the best junior in the country (James), a game Anthony’s team wo...
Post a Comment
Read more

‘So You Think You Can Dance’ 18 episode 3 recap: In ‘Auditions: Day Three,’ one hopeful was like ‘the LeBron James of dance’

"So You Think You Can Dance" season 18 ended the first stage of the competition on Monday night, March 18, with the last dance hopefuls looking for a spot in the choreography round. So far the bar has been set pretty high by standout performances from dancers representing a variety of dance styles, shapes, sizes and ability levels. So who stood out among the last crop of contestants? Did the show save the best for last? "We've put 25 people through," said judge Allison Holker at the start of the show. She singled out contemporary dancer Braylon Browner and gymnast Dakayla Wilson as standouts from the first two days of auditions. Comfort Fedoke agreed that Wilson is capable of anything a professional choreographer could throw at her. Maksim Chmerkovskiy was especially impressed by contemporary dancer Easton Magliarditi . But "there's so many other things outside of dance that we're also looking at." More from GoldDerby SEE ...
Post a Comment
Read more