Fun Is Over; Now the Games Begin : U.S. Ends Exhibition Schedule With Uninspired Victory

As send-offs go, this one was not the grandest.

The U.S. Olympic men’s basketball team, down at last to its final 12 players, played its final exhibition game on U.S. soil Tuesday, against Athletes in Action, at Cal State Fullerton’s Titan Gym.

It was a game played in front of the smallest crowd (3,752, a sellout) and in the smallest arena of any of the nine exhibitions the team played. The other games were played against groups of National Basketball Assn. players.

Anyone hoping to cheer a lean, mean and Games-ready U.S. team might have been a bit disappointed, especially when a lineup that didn’t include Danny Manning or Hersey Hawkins missed its first four shots--all on one possession--in a 91-71 victory.

But Coach John Thompson cautioned against drawing too many conclusions from Tuesday’s outing. He was thought to be saving the business of determining lineups for when the team “gets serious”--a process that begins now that the exhibitions are over.

“I think I’m more concerned about a set nine than a set five,” he said of the lineup. “A lot of that has to do with who we’ll match up against . . . . I don’t want to name a starting lineup and have five people feel great and seven people feeling bad. I think it’s important to keep relations good. I’ve always been afraid of making five guys on a team feel proud and the majority feel bad.”

Tuesday’s game was different from the other exhibitions for a number of reasons other than the site and the opponent.

It was the first night this team has officially been the team, and not a group playing with the knowledge that not all of them would be going to Seoul.

And, for the first time, the Olympic team saw a substantial amount of zone defense, something it didn’t encounter against NBA players.

“Today was really good for us to see something different,” Thompson said.

Moreover, the team was not playing against a group of individual stars, but instead was playing a group with a team system.

“The individual talent in the pros is phenomenal,” Thompson said. “But this is a team that was not that strong individually but was more organized.”

This, Thompson was saying, is more like the teams the U. S. will see in the Olympics.

The Olympic team lost twice in its nine exhibitions, the second loss coming last Saturday in Las Vegas. The team will leave Los Angeles for Tokyo on Sunday and open play in the Olympic tournament Sept. 18 against Spain.

The farewell the team received was less than rousing. One Olympic team member, Stacey Augmon, was even booed when he was introduced. Augmon plays for Nevada Las Vegas, a rival of Cal State Fullerton in the Big West Conference.

But this is, after all, a team still in formation. After Tuesday, the personnel is set, but the team, in a sense, is not.

Thompson said he is pleased with J. R. Reid’s recent play under the basket.

“I think the last three games he really has established himself a lot more inside,” Thompson said.

Reid scored 14 points Tuesday, 12 in the second half. Vernell Coles and Charles Smith, formerly of Pittsburgh, also scored 14 points for the United States.

Offense is something Thompson would like to see from Hawkins.

“Hawkins needs to look for the shot a lot more,” he said. “I’ve been fussing at him to shoot. And Danny (Manning) the same thing.

But these are the things that Thompson is going to work on, now that the team is set--and now that he won’t be at all worried about opposing coaches scouting the exhibitions.

“We’ve been adequate. I’ve been too soft on them,” Thompson said.