Aussies Get (Down) Under Americans' Skin; Lose By "Only" 11

The fifth and final US exhibition game marked either a) the toughest challenge the US has received since Greece in '06 or b) the most bored Uncle Sam's Finest have been in a game situation. I'll chalk up the 87-76 victory more to the latter than the former, simply because I refuse to believe an Australian teams sans Andrew Bogut is capable of playing a snarling, fully engaged American team to only an 11 point loss.

Mine eye fell upon the following:

1. The Australian point guard - Patrick Mills - only 19 and a smidgen under 6 feet, looks like the real deal. He glides over the floor like a well-hit hockey puck and displayed impressive range and moxie against Paul, Kidd, et al. I wish to wallabies I had seen him play when his American college, St. Mary's, played Texas here in Little Rock, AR during the first round of this spring's NCAA tournament. Instead, I saw Memphis receive a closer game than expected from Texas-Arlington.

2. There's a LOT of jingoistic schlock floating through cyberspace these days with the onset of the Olympics only a few days away. Fortunately, not all of it is vomit-inducing. Every once in while, a piece or two of it is actually ok, makes you think - "Yeah, I guess it is pretty cool to be American."
Case in point - this commercial, featuring the dulcet voice of Marvin Gaye basking in the lushest, bad-assest rendition of the "Star-Spangled Banner" known to man (er, cat). His singing is interspersed with shots of a Team USA practice in impossibly cool slow-mo.
Then again, I have an inkling that even Marvin Gaye singing the Iranian national anthem with dramatic slow-mo shots of the Persian Go-kart team warming up would be equally as hip.

3. Kudos for Coach K finally deciding to call the Americans' first time-out of the exhibition games with 6 minutes to go in the third quarter. Of course, he had to do it - his team was reeling from a 15-4 2nd-half opening run that brought the Australia to only a 48-44 deficit. Following the break, the US was able to refocus and pad its lead a bit. As color commentator Fran Frashilla repeatedly reminded the viewers, the US's days of coasting through an international tournament w/o calling a timeout are long over (Daly did not call one during the '92 run). There will be tough stretches against the likes of Greece and Spain in which we'll need to call a timeout. And it's nice that the very act itself won't be such foreign territory once we arrive there.