What the hell is up with USA basketball? I watched most of the game yesterday against Puerto Rico and it was like Carlos Arroyo just squatted down in the middle of the floor and made the American squad roll around in his eliminations. Truly horrific. From what I remember, our heroes were something like 3/26 from beyond the three point line. A three point line that, you may recall, is something like three feet shorter than then the NBA one. We should've sent a WNBA team over, with Vince Carter or something so people would buy tshirts.

While I'm on this subject, I noticed a few interesting things (oh yeah. Another unordered list. Love it):

• What was up with all the hispanic cleavage? The Puerto Rican jerseys have scooped necks cut lower than a sorority sister's bar crawl top. All they needed were long necklaces and some glitter. Eye-catching, and very disturbing.
• Did somebody dip Tim Duncan in something? I always assumed he was mostly a white guy, but now he's as dark as Iverson's tattoos. He caught an inbounds pass and made a great little skyhook, and I got very confused when the announcer mentioned him by name.
• I've never watched a lot of international-rules basketball, so I gotta ask: what the hell is with the trapezoidal key? For 2 quarters I thought my TV was broken. Is it a new rule? I should think I would have noticed in the last Olympics, although my ability to remember things from 4 years ago is negligible. I can barely remember 2 minutes ago.
• Did LeBron play? Was he in the game at all? I must've been blacked out when he was, because I never saw him on the floor, even after half the team had fouled out. I don't quite get Larry Brown's reasoning, not having Duncan (a very dominant big man) and LeBron (the most athletic player and talented passer on the floor) out there for 48 solid minutes. I mean, I'm no expert by any means, but if you didn't bother to bring anybody who can hit a three point shot, you need to start finding any means of getting the ball to your bruising big guy that you can. If your inlet passer can also create his own shot and can play any of three positions, well that's a nice bonus, isn't it?

  (No, I didn't just lift that entire graf from Bill Simmons, but the fact that you think I did warms my heart.)

Speaking of Bill Simmons, you should head on over to this column he wrote a few weeks back about USA basketball and why we won't even medal. He's both smarter and funnier than I, and obviously knows more about hoops.