Faster, Higher, Stonger

By WILLIAM A. HENRY III

Against the U.S. basketball teams, the world was second

Almost everyone, it seemed, had a pet theory of how and why the unthinkable could happen. The U.S. men's and women's basketball teams, so the reasoning went, might look invincible. But they were pickup squads, assembled in March and still learning one another's moves, matched against seasoned teams, in some cases professionals. They would play on the slightly different international court, under different rules; the men would face unfamiliar zone defenses that would force them to shoot from outside rather than dazzle with dunkmanship. Indeed, before the Games opened, former Marquette Coach Al McGuire, now a basketball analyst for NBC, bet U.S. Men's Coach Bobby Knight a dinner that his charges would lose. Said McGuire: "The way our system is structured, we don't have time to put a team together."

In the end, of course, all the speculation proved pointless. The American women beat their opponents by an average margin of 33; the men by 32. Even the scores did not fully convey the sense of hopelessness with which the other teams went onto the court. Coach Antonio Diaz-Miguel of Spain, whose men's team lost by 101-68 in a preliminary game and by 96-65 for the gold medal, predicted from the outset that the U.S. men would not lose a game. Said he: "American basketball is 50 years ahead of other countries, and I think no one will ever arrive at the same place." South Korean Women's Coach Seung Youn Cho, who endured an 85-55 defeat in the final, said before the tournament started, "To be honest, the rest of us are playing for the silver medal."

The American teams regretted only that the Soviet boycott had denied them the chance to avenge defeats in their last Olympic encounters. The U.S. women took the silver to the Soviets' gold in the first Olympic women's basketball competition in 1976. Anne Donovan, a holdover from the 1980 boycott team and a member of a U.S. squad that last year beat the Soviets once and lost to them twice by a total of three points, maintained last week that "we are too motivated to lose to anyone, especially the Soviets." Coach Pat Head Summitt agreed: "We are at least 15 points better than when we last played them." The U.S. men have not met the Soviets in the Olympics since the controversial 51-50 U.S. defeat in 1972, a delayed-buzzer game so bitterly disputed that to this day not one of the U.S. team members has claimed his silver medal. Said the victorious Knight: "We would beat the Soviets. They don't know how to play defense."

In keeping with the Olympic motto, the American teams moved faster, leaped higher and drove stronger than anyone else. They also had the deeper benches: in the women's final, all twelve U.S. players scored at least two points; in the men's eight games, five different players took turns being top scorer, and eight started at least once. Said Forward Michael Jordan: "We can put any five we have out there and get the job done."

The men displayed their talent and versatility to the fullest in the final. Before halftime, the Americans staged a 9-min. onslaught during which Spain yielded 11 turnovers and had no field goals and no rebounds. Patrick Ewing, the 7-ft. Georgetown center, raised his total to 19 blocked shots hi the tournament, and at one point forced a Spanish player to shoot from behind the backboard.

The Americans opened the Games against the Chinese, who lost 97-49 and seemed baffled by American-style play; when Ewing made a leaping block of a shot, China's Haibo Wang bolted as if he had glimpsed an evil spirit. Later games were closer, but only the West Germans, who had four present or former U.S. collegians on the team, and the Canadians, who had three, lost by fewer than 30 points.

The flashiest men's player was Jordan, the 6-ft. 6-in. University of North Carolina senior who has won six awards designating him America's best collegian. Born to dunk, he penetrated the zone defenses of opponents to slam at least one goal in each of the eight games. In the first half against hapless Uruguay he hit three dunks and his teammates had three more, vs. eight total field goals of any kind for the Uruguayans. He also hit from outside: in the preliminary game against Spain, he widened a narrow U.S. lead with a 28-ft. shot at the first-half buzzer, and finished the game with 24 points, the highest for any U.S. player during the Olympics.

The surprise heroes of the team were two dead-eye outside shooters. Chris Mullin, a senior at St. John's University in New York, contributed 20 points in the semifinal. Steve Alford, a sophomore on Knight's Indiana squad whose selection initially caused controversy, led the team with 18 points against France, and again with 17 against a West German team that gave the U.S. its closest thing to a scare, losing by only 78-67. Two better-known players, Ewing and 6-ft. 9-in. Wayman Tisdale of Oklahoma, at first spent a lot of time on the bench because they were not adroit enough at defense to please Knight, whose Indiana teams have won six Big Ten titles and two N.C.A.A. championships with smothering man-to-man play. Indeed, the coach's favorite player was Jordan's less glamorous North Carolina Teammate Sam Perkins, whose hustling style prompted Knight to say, "If I could coach Perkins all the time, I might stay in this game forever."

Whether Knight should coach forever--or ever again for the U.S.--was hotly debated by people who watched his treatment of players in Los Angeles. Knight is a relentless perfectionist; to him, a flawed victory is as unsatisfying as a defeat. Late in the quarterfinal against West Germany, Jordan carelessly dribbled the ball out of bounds. From the bench Knight bellowed, "Michael, get in the game!" With six minutes left to play in the semifinal against Canada and with the U.S. ahead 62-42, Guard Leon Wood threw a loose pass and was pulled out of the game for a full-volume lecture. Wood professed not to be bothered, but said later: "When you have made a mistake, you know it, and you don't need someone calling it to your attention, especially not the way he does, in front of a crowd." Some observers wryly suggested that basketball should impose the same rules as soccer, in which coaches are required to sit on the bench and to have minimal contact with the team on the field.

Summitt coached her women in a more supportive style, and achieved perhaps more impressive results. For decades, women's play lagged behind the fast-breaking, street-smart style of the men's game. When the women began to catch up, it was the Soviets, headed by 7-ft. 1-in. Center Uliana Semenova, who led the way. Now, in 6-ft. 3-in. Forward Cheryl Miller of U.S.C., America at last has a player who can dunk and who has the elbows-out style to say, and mean, "In your face." Men and women alike pay her a compliment that even feminists could approve: in the words of her friend Magic Johnson of the Los Angeles Lakers, "That lady plays like a man."

She also plays like a team member. After Summitt benched her in practice for ball-hogging, Miller learned that she could be valued just as much for shrewd passing as for shooting. Her bursts of brilliance, known to the admiring as Miller Time, were typified by one spectacular 52-sec., eight-point rampage in the gold-medal game. With the U.S. ahead by 50-38, she soared above the rim to tap in an offensive rebound, snared a defensive rebound and drilled a 60-ft. pass up court to Denise Curry for a score, stole the ball and traversed the length of the court for a layup, and finally attracted a trio of Korean defenders before passing deftly to Curry for another score. Her stats for the game: 16 points, eleven rebounds, five assists, two steals, all in just 23 minutes of playing time.

The player who showed the surest instinct for spontaneous drama was Pam McGee, who hurtled into the stands moments after the medal ceremony to give her gold to her twin sister and U.S.C. teammate Paula, who was among the last candidates cut from the team. Like several of the 1980 holdovers, the McGees are exploring opportunities to play for pay in Europe--but only if chosen together.

Unlike most of the other U.S. Olympians, the basketball players, particularly the men, can make a lucrative career out of their skills. But in Los Angeles, they were among the few true amateurs, and they felt a special pride in sustaining the U.S. record, now 77-1 in men's competition, or 78-0 in the eyes of the millions who still dispute the outcome in 1972. Said Knight after winning the gold: "I didn't think players could come together and play as hard and as well as these kids did." The first Olympic basketball competition, in 1936, was played outdoors on sand and clay, and the final was held in a dribble-deadening rain. The game may have to be played that way again before the U.S.'s hard-charging knights fail to scale every summit.

--By William A. Henry III. Reported by Lee Griggs/Los Angeles

With reporting by Lee Griggs