BEIJING -- The U.S. men's basketball team ensured the
fireworks started before the opening ceremonies at the 21st World
University Games.
The Americans opened their campaign for a seventh consecutive
gold medal with a 112-50 thrashing of Iran on Wednesday, led by
Maryland teammates Lonny Baxter and Juan Dixon.
Baxter scored 27 points and Dixon contributed 20 points and four
assists.
"We wanted to make sure that we got off to a good start," said USA head coach Jerry Dunn. "We wanted to share the ball on the
offensive end and we also wanted to improve defensively, not only on the
full court, but in the half court area. I thought this was a good game for
us to play a lot of people and get our feet wet."
"We're happy to get on the court," said Dixon. "We were excited to be out
there. We came out here to China to play basketball and finally got started
today. We were very unselfish out there, we've got our chemistry going and
hopefully we can keep it going. If we keep on playing the way we did today,
passing the ball and playing together, it will take us far."
China struggled in the first half of its opener against the
Virgin Islands before holding on for a 77-65 win.
Dallas Mavericks forward Wang Zhizhi was the leading scorer with
23 points for the Chinese, who rallied from a 40-37 halftime
deficit.
Yao Ming, the 7-foot-5 Olympian who was considered a first-round
NBA draft pick before deciding to stay with the Chinese national
team, scored 20 points and grabbed 21 rebounds.
In other basketball preliminaries; Greece beat Angola 63-43;
Turkey beat South Africa 86-70; Sweden had a 83-62 win over South
Korea; Britain defeated Hong Kong 83-67; and Germany thrashed Peru
107-56.
Japan and Lithuania were awarded wins when Nigeria and Burundi
forfeited, while the Czech Republic raced to a 113-61 win over the
Lebanon.
The U.S. women's team opened with a 134-37 thrashing of South
Africa, while Canada edged Japan 78-73. Sweden beat Mexico 65-55,
Lithuania defeated Yugoslavia 70-65 and Brazil beat Portugal 65-61.
The Czech Republic had a 107-69 win against Taiwan and China was
awarded a win because Kazakstan failed to get its lineup
accredited.
Volleyball also started Wednesday, with Scott Wong leading the
U.S. team to a 3-1 win over Portugal. Wong was expected to carry
the American flag for the opening ceremony later Wednesday at
Workers' Stadium.
China has the biggest representation with 265 athletes competing
in all 12 sports. The United States, which has topped the medal
standings at every University Games since 1991, has 183 athletes --
including 102 men and 81 women -- to compete in eight sports.
The lighting of the cauldron at the 70,000-seat Workers' Stadium
will be the culmination of a 112-day torch relay that incorporated
300,000 torch bearers and traversed 63 cities across China.
Information from the Associated Press was used in this report. Send this story to a friend | Most sent stories |
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