SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico – The team that put together USA Basketball for the last two FIBA AmeriCup qualifiers knew it would only be together for about a week.
The players made the most of that time.
Ra’Shad James scored 21 points and the US closed the AmeriCup qualifier with a 6-0 record, beating Mexico 96-75 on Saturday. Brandon Bass scored 12 points for the Americans, who outperformed the Mexicans 33-12 from a 3-point range.
“Every player would want to be part of a situation like this,” said James. “You had guys who quickly bought into the system … a selfless bunch of guys.”
Joe Johnson finished with 11 points, nine rebounds and seven assists for the US, William Davis added 10 points and Isaiah Thomas – looking for an NBA comeback – had nine points in 20 minutes.
AmeriCup is the championship for the countries in the FIBA Americas region; the US has won it seven times in nine previous chances, and it came in the two games in San Juan knowing it already had a berth in the September 2022 tournament. It ended anyway beating the Bahamas and Mexico with a combined 37 points in those games.
Edgar Garibay finished with 19 points and nine rebounds for Mexico.
It didn’t take long for the US to run wild on Saturday’s game.
Mexico was within 14-10 of the first six minutes, which was about the last time it had any realistic hope. The Americans went on a 13-0 run to push the lead to 17 late in the first quarter, Dakota Mathias made a 3-pointer with 3:13 over in the half to take the lead to 53-24 and the outcome was never up for discussion again. .
“We really represent something bigger than ourselves, and we have,” said US coach Joe Prunty. “We talked about how to maintain a standard.”
Prunty also raved about how selfless the Americans were, even quoting Thomas for giving back a few minutes on Saturday so others could play more.
“The way they represented each other, the way they represented Team USA, it was a great job [USA Basketball men’s national team director] Sean Ford and the staff to put together a team like this, ”Prunty said.
The US improved to 11-1 against Mexico in senior level FIBA or FIBA Americas games.
It took exactly a year for the US to pass the AmeriCup qualifier; The Americans started the process by beating Puerto Rico 83-70 on February 20, 2020 in San Juan, which would be the closest match they had in the six-game series.
The coronavirus pandemic forced the last two sets of qualifying windows for two games to bubble, first in Indianapolis in November when the US captured their AmeriCup berth and now these games in San Juan. Mike Fratello coached the US in the first two windows, Prunty took over for these games, and the Americans put together three different rosters for the three sets of games.
The AmeriCup qualification was the first step in a long process of conquering the fields for the Basketball World Cup in 2023 and the 2024 Olympics in Paris. Only the host countries – the Philippines, Japan and Indonesia for the next World Cup and France for the 2024 Olympics – automatically qualify for those tournaments. All other countries must succeed in a series of other tournaments, such as the AmeriCup, to make those fields.