Bad Trip Has U.S. Men’s Volleyball Team Reeling : Volleyball: Olympics are three weeks away and the squad still is struggling to get everything together. They face Brazil tonight.

The three-week trip by the U.S. national men’s volleyball team was so bad, the only thing missing was Chevy Chase and a film crew.

There were three flights longer than nine hours, where they watched “Frankie and Johnny” for the sixth time, and a Roger Moore movie, “Bed and Breakfast,” twice. “And it wasn’t any better the second time,” said critic-at-large Scott Fortune.

Their luggage didn’t make it through customs into China. They had to work out in their travel wear, and by the time they finally changed clothes after 1 1/2 days, their shirts were stiff.

It wasn’t much better on the court. They lost four out of six matches, including both to Holland in the first weekend of the World League playoffs.

If Siskel and Ebert were judging this road trip to China, Russia and the Netherlands, we’re talking two thumbs down.

Now the really bad news: The U.S. team is a little more than three weeks away from the Olympics and the reviews are not comforting.

“We’re not playing very well right now,” said outside hitter Bob Ctvrtlik.

“We’re a little bit out of rhythm,” Coach Fred Sturm said.

The starting six haven’t played an international match together since a June 6 victory over CIS. Steve Timmons, who is vying for his third gold medal, has a sore leg and his condition is listed as day-to-day.

“I think he’s going to be just fine,” Sturm said, “It’s just a matter of when.”

The consolation of last week is that Holland is the tallest team in the world and one of six legitimate Olympic medal contenders. They played about as well as they can play and the Americans didn’t.

The U.S. meets another contender this weekend before departing July 19 for Olympic processing in Tampa, Fla. Both matches are against Brazil, tonight at the Sports Arena and Sunday at the Forum in Inglewood. The United States (10-4 overall, 3-3 in the playoffs) must win one of those matches to clinch a spot in the World League’s final four, but they must win twice to eliminate the chance of a semifinal round match against Group C champion Italy (13-1, 6-0).

Brazil (9-5, 2-4) twice overcame 2-1 deficits last week to defeat Group B champion Cuba (9-5, 3-3).

“On the basis of performance in this quadrennium (four-year period), the favorites are Italy and Cuba,” Sturm said.

So Brazil is no pushover, and the U.S. is trying to pull itself together in a short period of time.

The players and the coach are concerned, but no one is desperate. After all, there are six former Olympians on this team.

“I think it’s important to get to the Final Four, but more important is that it’s our last two matches before the Olympics and it would be real positive to end with a couple of victories,” Fortune said. “That’s the most important aspect of these matches this week.”

So the Americans will rely on the one thing they hold as their advantage.

“Our strength is that we’ve got a lot of very experienced players who have won championships at many different levels,” said Sturm, who on Tuesday determined the 12 who will travel to Barcelona. “We’ve got fairly talented young players, so it’s a good mix of experience and youth.”

And the team’s weakness?

“Lack of continuity.”

For pure disjointedness, how about this. Setter Jeff Stork, whose wife, Sabine, recently gave birth to their second child, joined the team for its Holland matches--after a 2 1/2-week hiatus from the team. When he was on the court with Dan Hanan and Carlos Briceno, it was the first time Stork had set for either of them.

Stork isn’t the only one who missed part of the trip. Starting middle blocker Doug Partie didn’t make the trip because he waited with his wife, Cathy, who gave birth to their child 10 days after the due date.

Timmons skipped the first two weekends, arrived for the third but returned right away because of the sore leg.

“If those guys hadn’t been over in Italy playing 60 matches, I guarantee they would be on this road trip,” said Ctvrtlik who, like Partie, Stork and Timmons, played in Italy and joined the team April 27. “It’s a fine balance between rest time and time together as a team. I think Fred Sturm decided we’re an experienced, veteran group, and if we’re well-rested, that’s more important than court time. We still have three weeks of straight training before the Olympics.

“If we were players of lesser experience, we would never have the luxury of giving them a day off. It’s still very risky.”

Sturm agreed.

“Now we’re home and now we’re all together,” he said. “It’s going to be important for us to make the most of the time we have together on the court.

“Ideally, it would be nice to have your top players all together playing on a full-time basis. I think when you have that, that’s good, but when you don’t, you have to make the most of it.

“(With Partie’s situation), with injuries and various other things, I don’t know what else to say but that these things happen. I also don’t like to dwell on that and move on and try to figure out what to do now.”

What Sturm is trying to figure out is how to correct the team’s sideout ability. It must be more consistent.

“Our sideout game is the key to our success,” Sturm said. “Eventually, we’re going to score our points.”

Hopefully, Timmons is a part of those adjustments.

“We’re still trying to get the entire team out there for more than a week at one time,” Stork said. “I’m not sure the step backward (in Holland) wasn’t unexpected just because we’re not playing as a group all the time.