A young Team USA has won the country’s first FIBA world basketball championship in 16 years.
Kevin Durant scored 28 points – including seven 3-pointers – as the United States beat the tournament’s host, Turkey, 81-64 in the gold medal game in Istanbul on Sunday.
The game capped off a perfect tournament for Team USA, which won all five of its group games before going 4-0 in the knockout stage.
Durant, 21, was named the tournament’s MVP. The team featured no players from the United States’ 2008 gold-medal-winning Olympic squad, and half of its 12 members are younger than 23.
Sunday’s victory makes the United States an automatic qualifier for the 2012 Olympic Games in London, England. It also wraps up a remarkable 25 months for Team USA coach Mike Krzyzewski, whose Duke Blue Devils won an NCAA title last spring between the United States’ victories in Beijing and Istanbul.
Team USA last won the FIBA World Championship in 1994, when it beat Russia in the final.
Check out SI.com for more on today's game.
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We went 4-0 in the knockout stage.
no i think 3-0
Congratulations!.. Kevin Durant is can't be stopped!
The scare from Brazil in the preliminary round seemed to wake up the US team for the knockout games.
Congratulations! We will work hard to compete as well as succeed!
there's a surprise
Shocker. yawn. moving on.
Congratulations to team USA for gold medal. They played excellent whole tournament and deserves this gold. Durant MVP, fantastic performance during whole tournament.
http://www.worldofbasketball.org
Whitepowa- quite frankly, I'm surprised you can type that well with your head that far up your a$$. Please go back to the rock/bridge beneath which you live so as not to make the rest of us caucasians appear as bigoted as you are.
You suffer from low self-esteem and you know it. Find help and you might lead a happy life.
lol was invented by a white man who farmed peaches