July 20, 1999
ALMADA, Portugal – The 1999 USA Men’s Junior World Championship Team defeated Argentina 83-71 to open Group II quarterfinals play at the FIBA Junior World Championship in Almada, Portugal, Monday night. Guard Matt Carroll, who will be a freshman at Notre Dame in the fall, played two minutes and went scoreless.
Missing its first five shots and committing two turnovers in the first five minutes, the Americans allowed Argentina to score eight unanswered points to open the contest. Lance Williams came into the game and ended the scoring drought with a layup at 15:33 to put the U.S. on the board. Then Logan scored four of the USA’s next seven points as the team began to chip away at the Argentinean lead, closing to 12-9 at 14:07.
Arentina went up 14-9, but the United States took off on a scoring spree, reeling off 17 consecutive points to take the lead, 26-14 at 9:57. Argentina scored the second half’s first five points, but both teams swapped baskets for the remainder of the contest and nine points was as close as Argentina would come as the USA earned its fourth victory in as many games.
Despite getting off to a slow start, the United States closed out the night shooting 50.8 percent (32-63 FGs) of its shots from the floor, including a stellar 63.6 percent (21-33 FGs) in the first half alone, while limiting Argentina to 44.6 percent of shooting on the night (25-56 FGs). The U.S. held a slim 36-31 rebounding edge and forced 11 errors by Argentina, while only committing seven turnovers of its own.
Brazil is the United States’ next opponent as the two countries face each other here Tuesday night at 7:30 p.m. (1:30 p.m. EST) and the U.S. closes out quarterfinals Group II play against Russia on Wednesday night at 9:30 p.m. (3:30 p.m. EDT). The top two teams from Group II will advance to the medal semifinals on July 23 and 24 and the gold medal will be contested on July 25.