THE 1987 PAN AMERICAN GAMES : Women’s Basketball : Brazil’s Shooting Star Has an Off Day in Loss to U.S.

The Pete Maravich of women’s basketball had her fling at posterity here Saturday and instead ended up falling on her posterior.

Hortencia Marcari, the 27-year-old heroine of Brazilian sports, led her team against the United States in the Pan American Games tournament at Market Square Arena. And, from most reports, it was to be a sight to behold.

The little Hortencia against the big, bad U.S. women. Underdog Brazil against powerful, talent-loaded USA. Hortencia face to face with Teresa Edwards, America’s new Cheryl Miller. It had all the ingredients except for drum rolls and a halftime exhibition matching David against Goliath.

But in the end in this one, Goliath stomped on the kid with the slingshot. Hortencia came, saw and was conquered. The legend was better than the reality. The hot commodity was more like a hot dog.

The final score was USA 84, Brazil 81. The closeness was misleading, since the Brazilians didn’t make any run until it was, for all intents and purposes, too late.

In fact, Brazil’s only real chance to win was at 84-79, with just under a minute left. But Hortencia hurled a brick at the basket from 25 feet that put the U.S. team in danger only from flying glass, not defeat.

Hortencia’s final brick left her with a 6 for 23 shooting afternoon, including 0-4 from three-point range. Her 23-point game, well below her standards, also included early foul trouble that kept her sidelined for 8 minutes; frequent out-of-control offensive play, and defense that resembled a bullfighter with a cape.

“Every player has the right to play good and bad,” she said afterward. “Today, I play bad.”

In truth, Saturday was an exception to the rule for the cherished superstar from the southeastern Brazilian town of Sorocoba, population about 100,000. She had scored 48 against the United States in the Pan Am Games in Caracas in ’83 and, more recently, she had helped her team beat NCAA champion Tennessee twice on its June trip to Brazil, scoring 43 and 37 points.

When asked about those high-scoring games earlier in the week here, she said that those point totals weren’t that big a deal. What was a big deal, she said, was her 124-point performance in a recent tournament in Sao Paulo, where her team won, 252-31.

Even watching her in a poor performance, the potential for 124-point performances can been seen. Call it the law-of-averages theory. Or the Maravich school of shooting, which says that if you throw it up there enough it will eventually fall through. Hortencia, her pony tail flopping like Maravich’s socks used to, is not bashful when it comes to flinging ball toward basket.

In fact, in that regard, there was a humorous, almost Freudian, translation from Portuguese to English of one of her statements in the press conference after the game.

“I was not happy with my throwing today,” she said.

That sounded like a shot-putter, but then, most of her shots looked as if they were launched by one.

Much of the credit (blame?) for Hortencia’s sub-par game went to Edwards, the 5-11 guard from Georgia, who had about three inches on Hortencia and used them well.

“She’s a good player, she played well,” Hortencia said afterward. “But the U.S. team has lots of good players. She was just one of them.”

Edwards was also the player who held Hortencia to 20 points in last summer’s Goodwill Games in Moscow.

“I’ll give my teammates much of the credit for holding her down today,” Edwards said. “When she got by me, she was history. I saw her losing her confidence in the first half, and getting timid on her shots. But then I saw her get her confidence back big time in the second half. And then I was in real trouble.”

Edwards was a bit kinder than Maria Helena Cardosa, Brazil’s coach, who said, “This was not one of Hortencia’s good games. She was a marked person from the start by the other team.” One bad game does not a superstar ruin, however. Especially when that superstar has reached the level of one-name status, such as her fellow countryman Pele.

“I knew she was something special when I first heard people referring to her and just using one name,” said Jody Conradt, U.S. women’s coach. “I only know three people in sports who are instantly recognizable by simply saying their first name--Hortencia, Pele and Reggie.” Ah, notoriety. Perhaps, like her one-name baseball counterpart, they will name a candy bar after Hortencia some day. After Saturday, they could call it “Airball.”