Aug. 22, 2007
The national sports pages have been filled of late with stories about the USA Basketball Team and the Olympic Qualifying Tournament that begins in Las Vegas today. For Mason fans, one of the more interesting stories concerns the U.S.'s opponent in tonight 11 p.m. EDT game. The Venezuelan national team will take on the U.S. and Mason rising senior Jesus Urbina will help lead his country against a team comprised of 12 NBA players.
The game will be televised tonight on ESPN Classic and it will be the first of at least four games for the team from Venezuela. The other three teams in the Pool with the U.S. and Venezuela are Canada, Brazil and the Virgin Islands. Pool play will be followed by a quarterfinal, semifinal and final round.
While FIBA Americas begins its championship this week, FIBA Asia held its championship a little more than three weeks ago, and that gave former Patriot Gabe Norwood a chance to play for the Filipino national team. Norwood, Mason's all-time leader in games played, helped his team to a 9th-place finish out of 16 teams.
In the preliminary rounds, Norwood's team lost to eventual-champion Iran, 75-69, beat China, 79-74, and lost to Jordan, 84-76. Finishing third in the pool put the Filipino team into the classification bracket, where teams competed for 9th-16th. The Philippines was dominant in that portion of play, beating Syria, 107-100, India, 104-69, and Kuwait, 89-58. A 78-76 win over China sealed 9th place.
Norwood averaged 8.3 points, 4.7 rebounds and 1.7 assists while shooting .514 from the field and 81 percent from the free throw line. His top performances came after the team advanced out of pool play. He had eight rebounds against Syria, 23 points five rebounds and four assists against India and 18 points five rebounds and five assists against Kuwait.
