THE SEOUL GAMES / DAY 14 : U.S. Shines Off Aussies for Bronze

Farewell, sweet princes . . .

The U.S. men’s basketball team said goodby Thursday night, walloping Australia in typical aggressive style, 78-49.

Were the Yanks in a bad mood?

The crowd in Chamsil Gymnasium was loudly pro-Aussie, the first real hostile house the United States has experienced in this venue. There was a a little push-and-shove between David Robinson and the Aussie center, Ray Borner, but Borner actually started that.

There were several faceoffs later, featuring Clipper-to-be Charles Smith. However, the game ended, mercifully, with no punches thrown and the Aussies, boisterous bangers themselves, had no complaints.

“That was nothing,” said Andrew Gaze.

Mercy, as usual, didn’t extend to the American game plan. Up 29 points in the second half, Coach John Thompson kept on pressing full-court, which was how he lost Hersey Hawkins against China. Hawkins wiped out on a fast break, colliding with Jeff Grayer, with the U.S. clinging to that 40-point lead and socking it to them.

But then, who’s perfect?

The U.S. players, echoing Thompson’s line, later lamented only having “made one mistake”--losing to the Soviets. Everyone else, they pointed out, had lost here, too, but the Soviets and Yugoslavs lost their games in the preliminaries.

Did Thompson bungle the selection process?

“The only thing anyone else could have done was to help us win that one game, and I can’t find that one man,” Thompson said. “We played eight games here and lost one. There aren’t too many people who could have prevented that. Larry Bird, Patrick Ewing or Michael Jordan could have prevented that.”

And the criticism?

“The people who like you will sympathize with you and the people who don’t like you will criticize you,” Thompson said. “I don’t think I would have accepted this position if I wasn’t capable of handling both sides of it.

“If somebody is willing to criticize us for striving for excellence and not achieving our goal--let it be.”

Last thoughts on how the Soviets handled the U.S. pressure:

Jeff Grayer said that their throwing the ball in to 7-foot 3-inch Arvydas Sabonis neutralized the zone press, since he was too big for the U.S. guards to harry. A man-to-man press, with Robinson up on Sabonis, might have answered that.

However, Grayer, Willie Anderson and the rest of the players refused to second-guess their coach.

Their “mistake” behind them, the Americans went out on a thundering note.

Said the Seton Hall-bound Gaze: “We’ve played all the top teams and it surprises the hell out of me how they didn’t beat the Russians. They must have choked big-time.”