Going through hoops

ATHENS -- First they leaped onto the scorer's table to say hello to their fans and then they went back to the floor and started dancing (well, hopping, anyway). The Argentina basketball team was celebrating its completely deserving gold medal.

'Twas a pretty good day for the Argentines, representing a country that had not won a gold medal in anything since the double scullers picked up one in 1952. First, the soccer team defeated Paraguay to win gold, then the basketball team took care of Italy by an 84-69 score last night to bring home gold in their second favorite sport.

It took a while for Argentina to assert itself. Italy has been a strangely resilient team during this tournament, and it certainly was no surprise when they came back from a 12-point, second-quarter deficit (34-22) to get within 2 at the half. They were doing it with outside shooting. In finest European fashion, they finished with 11 threes, which came from seven players.

Argentina, meanwhile, was playing a more American game, doing their scoring on a combination of sound inside play and a nice transition game. The man doing the big damage was a 24-year-old, 6-foot-9-inch inside-out force named Luis Scola, who finished with 25 points (on 10-for-13 shooting) and 11 rebounds on a night when he was desperately needed to produce, since Argentina was playing one vital big man short.

That's because in the waning seconds of the Argentina victory against the United States, Fabricio Oberto, a solid inside performer, sustained a major arm injury. He spent last night sitting on the bench with his arm in a cast up to his elbow, which brought back bitter memories of two years ago at the world championships in Indianapolis, when star guard Manu Ginobili injured his ankle late in a triumph over the US and missed the title game against Yugoslavia, which Argentina lost in overtime.

Scola spoke after the US game of a need for "revenge, because Argentina felt it was the most deserving team in Indianapolis. He can now say his team was the most deserving team here.

The Argentines took a 60-54 lead into the final period, still barren of threes; but 32-year-old Alejandro Montecchia, a veteran of Argentine, Spanish, and Italian basketball, hit a huge one at 61-59. Nor was he done tormenting the Italians. Montecchia hit two more threes, scoring 11 of his 17 in the fourth quarter. He had also scored the final basket of the third period, that with 0.2 seconds to go on a strong drive to the hoop.

As for Ginobili (16), he was a force throughout. But he did throw a scare into his fans, not to mention Spurs coach Gregg Popovich, who was seated at the far end of the floor, when he banged knees with an Italian with 1.6 seconds remaining in the third period. But he was able to do what he had to do in order to nail this down for his team.

This Argentina bunch was the first team to defeat an NBA All-Star squad two years ago in Indy and they knocked off another NBA squad to advance to the gold medal game. They were the only logical champions.