THE 1987 PAN AMERICAN GAMES : Puerto Rico Proves a Worthy Basketball Foe in Losing to U.S.

Maybe the strongest indictment of the quality of the basketball competition in the 10th Pan American Games is the organizers’ choice of venues.

In a state where Hoosier hysteria, that mad love for basketball, reigns supreme, gymnastics is being held in a modified but still massive Hoosier Dome.

Basketball is being played in the much smaller Market Square Arena, where thousands of seats have been curtained off and crowds have averaged fewer than 3,000 spectators a session. There’s not a lot of interest, apparently, in watching Panama and Uruguay tip off for the right to play for fifth place.

The Hoosiers have been waiting for something bigger, something to whet their hoop palates before Bobby Knight returns from that fishing trip he says he has been on and starts heading Indiana’s team back toward the Final Four. Thursday afternoon, they finally got their wish.

The United States played in the semifinals against Puerto Rico, which gave Knight such a hard time in the 1979 Pan Am Games at San Juan. The Hoosiers had something to cheer about, and 7,157 came inside on a warm, sunny day to watch the United States score an 80-75 victory.

The U.S. will face Brazil, 137-116 semifinal winner over Mexico, in Sunday’s gold medal game. Oscar Schmidt scored 53 points for the Brazilians, and Marcel Souza added 38.

David Robinson, the former Navy center and the first player selected in the 1987 National Basketball Assn. draft, led the unbeaten United States to its sixth victory with 20 points, 13 rebounds and 4 blocked shots. Danny Manning, a senior All-American forward from Kansas, added 20 points and 6 rebounds.

Puerto Rico (4-2) was led by Jose Ortiz, the former Oregon State center and first-round choice of the NBA’s Utah Jazz, who had 31 points, 9 rebounds and 4 blocked shots.

“This was a good game for us because we finally were tested at the end,” said Denny Crum, the U.S. coach from the University of Louisville.

“We had played three exhibitions and five Pan Am games and the games haven’t been close. We really haven’t been tested. It is good to see what you are made of when you are able to come out on top, when you are under pressure at the end of the game and you haven’t played your best.”

The United States blitzed its first five Pan Am opponents by an average of 29 points. Uruguay lost to the Yanks in the quarterfinals, 105-81, and that was the closest any team came.

But Crum said he warned his team that this game would be different. Not only did Puerto Rico have a strong center to challenge Robinson in Ortiz, but the team had some special motivation.

Gene Bartow, the former UCLA coach now at Alabama Birmingham, resigned as coach Tuesday complaining of the flu. Bartow, who coached Puerto Rico in the 1976 Olympics, was a controversial selection because he was chosen over several Puerto Rican coaches. He was replaced by his co-coach, Armandito Torres.

Torres is a short, roundish coach, whose demonstrative court behavior is more reminiscent of Rollie Massimino of Villanova than of the more placid Bartow. His fiery tactics seemed to inspire the Puerto Rican team.

He keep up constant direction from the sideline and spent little time on the bench. He fought a constant battle to avoid crossing the midcourt stripe. If international basketball had the same coaching box as college basketball, the U.S. team might still be shooting technical fouls.

“I don’t believe it matters who is coaching,” Torres said. “The players play for their country, which is Puerto Rico. They did so today and they will do so again (Saturday).”

Puerto Rico reached the semifinals despite the coaching controversy and the loss of two of its best players, Wes Correa and Francisco Leon, after they tested positive for drugs and were suspended from the team. Correa tested positive for marijuana and Leon for cocaine before the games.

Torres said subsequent tests were negative and that the Puerto Rico National Basketball Federation wanted to reinstate the players, but the country’s national Olympic committee refused.

But Puerto Rico put the turmoil aside to give the United States its toughest challenge. Every time the U.S. team threatened to break the game open, Puerto Rico came back.

The United States, 37-28, with three minutes left in the first half but Puerto Rico scored the last nine points of the half to tie the game, 39-39. Puerto Rico would have taken a two-point lead at the half had forward Mario Morales not fumbled a fast-break pass under the basket with one second left.

Puerto Rico started the second half where it left off, scoring five of the first seven points for a 44-41 lead in the first 2:13. But with Robinson scoring 11 of his 20 points over the next 11 minutes, the United States pulled out to a 72-59 lead with six minutes left before Puerto Rico then charged back again.

Puerto Rico scored 11 consecutive points to draw within 72-70 with 2:59 to play, but could not retake the lead. The victory was sealed when Manning converted two free throws with 36 seconds left and Ortiz made only the front half of his opportunity 21 seconds later.

The final minutes were marked by chants of U-S-A, U-S-A. Yet it was a considerably smaller, but much more enthusiastic group of several hundred Puerto Rico supporters gathered behind the Puerto Rican basket who gave the crowd its character.

Waving Puerto Rican flags and chanting in Spanish, the group was on its feet for much of the game. It was nationalism flavored with humor. When Manning missed a wide-open dunk near the end of the first half, the crowd rose in unison, “Comanse la Pelota,” which translated means “Eat the Ball.”

It was all good-natured and showed nothing of any bitterness that might remain from 1979 when Knight was found guilty in abstensia of assaulting a policemen at a practice session in San Juan. There even was a fan waving a Puerto Rican flag and wearing an Indiana University sweatshirt.

“We’ve forgotten about Bobby Knight,” Torres said, smiling. “We don’t even think about Bobby Knight. You (in the United States) are the only ones who think about Bobby Knight. I forgot about him many years ago until you just reminded me of him.”