U.S. Hoops Gets Goodwill Gold
It was a day of surprises for U.S. athletes at the Goodwill Games.
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Mark Ruiz thought he was in water over his head against the dominating Chinese divers. He fell short in the 1-meter springboard, but not by nearly as much as he expected.
Ruiz, already the best U.S. platform diver at 19, made his first big splash off the springboard winning the bronze medal behind a pair of Chinese men and ahead of an onrushing German.
And there was no bigger surprise than at Madison Square Garden, where the young U.S. basketball team also won a medal is wasn't supposed to - the gold.
The Squad of college undergraduates beat Australia 93-85 in overtime.
It was the first major international men's basketball title for a team of U.S. amateurs since a college all-star team won the world championship in 1986.
"It's unbelievable, to win a gold medal for the USA. It's the highlight of my life," said Wally Szczerbiak of Miami-Ohio, who grew up in suburban Long Island and used to come to the Garden to cheer on the Knicks. "It was great to win it here in my hometown."
Ruiz, who moved to Orlando, Fla., from Puerto Rico six years ago, was in third place after all six rounds, but he said he had no clue of his standing.
"I don't ever look at the scoreboard," he said. "I thought I was fourth. All I do is concentrate on my own dives."
If Ruiz had been paying attention, he would have seen Andreas Wels of Germany scoring 72.00 and 73.47 points on his last two dives with a string of 8.0 and 8.5 scores, putting the pressure on Ruiz.
But Ruiz nailed his last dive, a reverse 2½ somersault with a half-twist, scoring 74.40 points to finish with 395.52, just 2.28 ahead of Wels.
Zhou Yilin of China was first after each of the first five dives, but a superb final die gave world champion Yu Zhoucheng the gold with 426.24 points, just ahead of Zhou's 421.86.
Ruiz was first in this year's national championships and first in the World Championships trials in platform last year before finishing sixth in the world meet. He didn't qualify for either the 1- or 3-meter springboard events.
"I wasn't really a serious springboard diver until this year," he said. "Over the past year, I've done so much better in the springboard, so that now I'm diving consistently. I plan to continue training in all three events."
America's other teen-age diving hope, Troy Dumais of Ventura, Calif., was fifth after three dives before scores of 31.62 and 31.50 in the fourth and fifth rounds. Dumais, 18, second in the 1-meter at this year's world championships, fell to 10th in the 12-man field.
"I didn't have the confidence in myself to do the dives I normally do," Dumais said. "I was thinking stupid thoughts, thinking too much, second-guessing myself."
Dumais said Ruiz was not really far behind the two Chinese men.
"They're dominant because they're consistent," he said. "They believe they're the best. They are so mentally sound. But if Mark had hit two dives that he had 6.5s on, he would've won. He was only 25 or 30 points behind."
Brian Gillooly of Kissimmee, Fla., was fifth with 367.77 points.
Lithuania, which lost to the United States in the semifinals, beat Puerto Rico 119-75 for the basketball bronze medal.
Karch Kiraly and Adam Johnson of the United States will play for a Goodwill Games beach volleyball medal. They narrowly beat the No. 2 U.S. team of Sinjin Smith and Ricci Luyties 16-14 to finish their preliminary group 2-1. Johnson had 24 kills, while Luyties had seven blocks
The world's top-rated men's team, Guilherme Marques and Para Ferreira of Brazil, rallied from a 6-0 deficit to finish the preliminary rounds unbeaten with a 15-11 victory over Canada's John Child and Mark Heese Friday. Ferreira had seven blocks.
"After 6-0, we still keep our minds concentrating," Marques said. "We changed our game. I did some jump serves and para made some good blocks. After 6-0, if you lose your mind, you will lose 15-0."
Marques and Ferreira won their first two matches by a combined score of 30-5.
Also advancing to Saturday's semifinals were Julien Prosser and Leo Zahner of Australia, who beat Martin Conde and Esteban Martinez of Argentina 15-7. A 9-point run gave the Australians a 12-4 lead. It was the first loss in three matches for the Argentines, and they reached the semifinals when defending champions Jan Kvalheim and Bjorn Maaseide of Norway lost to Martin and Paul Laciga of Switzerland 16-14.
Rhythmic gymnast Alina Kabayeva of Russia became the games' first quadruple-gold medalist, adding titles in the ribbon, clubs and hoop to her all-around gold. She also took silver in the rope.
The figure skating competition doesn't start for anoher five days, but it lost a big name Friday when former U.S. national champion Nicole Bobek withdrew. Bobek said she neeed more time to recuperate from a nagging injury and to get reacquainted with coach Richard Callaghan.
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