No, those games had absolutely no meaning or relevance for qualifying. It's basically the equivalent of going to a gym and scrimmaging for practice.
I understand that point of view. My opinion on friendlies, and preseason games is that it's the process that matters, not the results. A loss where the team is playing the desired way, is better than a win where they're not. But the game against Australia did occur, and the USA did lose. Saying the USA has not lost in 58 games is incorrect. Saying the USA has not lost in 58 tournament games is correct.
I realize that the Australia win over the USA was a huge moment for your country but it was a practice game that meant nothing.
I understand that you and many others (even many Aussies) feel that way, but that doesn't change that fact that the loss to Australia did happen. France broke the USA winning streak of "58 straight games with NBA players among the Olympics, World Cup and FIBA Americas". Australia broke the USA "78-game win streak with NBA players when including exhibitions". https://olympics.nbcsports.com/2019/09/11/usa-france-fiba-world-cup-quarterfinals/ I'm beginning to think the whole "streak" thing is bullshit anyway. The USA lost to Mexico on 28 June 2018, Mexico with 0 NBA players, USA with 0 NBA players. I'm not sure I agree with the importance of the "with NBA players" aspect. Every country is fielding the best team they have available to them at the time. It seems like a stat created to excuse poor performance (by USA standards), or by other nations to pump their own tyres. "Sure Mexico beat the USA, but the US didn't have their NBA players, so our win is better." Now I don't know how I feel about this.
I'm sorry but the Australia vs USA game wasn't a real game. Just like pre-season games aren't real games. They're practice.
It was a real game, and our preseason games are real games. Their not imaginary, they exist. https://www.dictionary.com/browse/real
Apparently this is the first FIBA World Cup/Championships where neither Serbia or the USA has made the semifinals.
If you follow this discussion back to the start it was stated. This is factually incorrect. The USA has been beaten multiple times before the loss to France.
Again, youre arguing semantics. Or if youre really struggling to understand the context, the context is "games that count for something".
No, just being accurate. Whether a game counts for something or not will differ depending the individual. The USA has lost games that count for something by anyone’s definition. They lost twice in qualification. To Mexico, and Argentina.
Yes if i am not mistaken i see those games decided qualification, so they were not practice, scrimmage or whatever. The top 7 teams from those games went to World Cup. I wonder how Ben Simmons feels now thay Australia might even win gold! Ps. I understand it might not suit the narrative, but those games were official games.
All those american guys on youtube comments saying shit like if we had the real team USA we would have destroyed France etc. Well guess what this was the "real" team USA because the guys that were better than them didn't care enough to represent their country for the world cup. Blame them
He may feel bad either way. If Australia wins gold, then he misses out. If Australia doesn’t win gold, some people may forever blame him.
This was the best possible team the USA could put together for this tournament. If they could have put together a better team, they would have; but they couldn’t.
