If you’re wondering if the FIBA World Championship means anything to the host nation of Turkey, check out the final minute or two of Turkey’s semifinal win over Serbia.

Team USA faces Turkey at 2:30 PM ET today (on ESPN) in the title game and will no doubt face their toughest test yet. The crowd will be as hostile as the Cameron Crazies.

Adrian Wojnarowski thinks Mike Krzyzewski’s response to Russian coach Mike Blatt’s comments about the ’72 gold medal game was out of line.

Long story short, Blatt (who holds dual citizenship in Israel and the United States) said that he thought the Russians deserved to win that controversial gold medal game 38 years ago. Coach K said that Blatt was a “Russian” (for coaching the Russian team) and that Blatt’s opinion was something of a “fairy tale.”

Enter Wojnarowski and his soap box…

To get past the dogged, undermanned Russians, Krzyzewski riled up that old Russian hate for his players and the public. It sniffed of desperation, but Duke’s coach isn’t taking the chance of becoming the first national coach in history to fail in winning consecutive world championships. Never mind the myth of sportsmanship in international basketball, Krzyzewski used up and spit out a most disposable Blatt.

Krzyzewski played the patriotism card to his advantage with Team USA, and yet later didn’t want the accountability of its ownership.

[Kryzewski] would get [the win], but not before sacrificing the good name of Blatt. When it was over, Krzyzewski gushed about Blatt’s genius, but that was easy at the game’s end. He had tagged him as a non-American for coaching those Russians, and labels are hard to shake when they come out of the mouth of a Hall of Fame coach. Yes, we’re friends, Coach K said. Friends, indeed. What a desperate, low-rent stunt.

Count me among those that find it very odd when national teams are helmed by coaches not from the same country. I just don’t get it. So Blatt’s coaching the Russian team seems strange to me, and when I first heard Coach K’s comments, I didn’t have a problem with them. Of course Blatt is going to say that the Russians deserved to win that gold medal. He knows where his bread is buttered.

Blatt, of course, says he came to this conclusion independently, after watching a documentary about the game. Fine. But he’s the one that brought the subject up and Krzyzewski responded. It’s still painful subject for USA Basketball and Blatt was the one who started the conversation.

Chris Sheridan, ESPN: Lamar Odom will continue to start at center, but Tyson Chandler expects to see a bigger role in having to defend against the 6-foot-11 Kaun and the 7-foot-1 Mozgov, who will play for the New York Knicks next season after signing a three-year contract earlier this summer. The Americans will also be at a size disadvantage at the power forward position, where Andrei Vorontsevich, who plays professionally for CSKA Moscow, is four inches taller than his U.S. counterpart, Andre Iguodala. So it is to be expected that the U.S. team will press in the backcourt and near midcourt as much as possible, not only to try to force turnovers but to slow the Russians from getting into their offensive sets. The Russians run high pick-and-rolls and side pick-and-rolls on a majority of their offensive possessions.

Chris Tomasson, Fanhouse: The 1972 game, won by the Soviets on a length-of-the-court inbound pass with three seconds left that resulted in a game-winning layup after officials had overruled two failed Soviet inbound passes, was discussed earlier this week by Russian coach David Blatt. Blatt, a U.S.native who now holds dual American-Israel citizenship, talked about crying while watching the game as a 13-year-old in Massachusetts. But he now says he believes Russia was justified in winning the game and the Americans weren’t cheated. “He’s Russian,” said Krzyzewski, who was in the Army stationed in South Korea when that game was played. “He coaches the Russian team. So he probably has that viewpoint. His eyes are clearer now because there are no tears in them. It’s great. Whatever he thinks, he thinks. It really has absolutely no bearing on what we’re trying to do (Thursday). Absolutely none.”

John Schuhmann, NBA.com: Russia lacks offensive talent, but is a big, strong and physical team. The Russians go 6-foot-5, 6-foot-9 and 6-foot-9 at the two, three and four spots. And their two centers both play big, averaging 24 points and 10 rebounds. Russia will look to use their size and get under the Americans’ skin with more contact than they’ve seen all tournament. Russia wears teams down and punishes them late. Over the course of six games, the Russians have lost the first half by four points, but have won the second by 45. The U.S. hasn’t seen that kind of physical play in its last three games against Iran, Tunisia and Angola. But the U.S. will be able to draw on the experience of facing Lithuania in its first exhibition game after arriving in Europe. The Lithuanians hammered the Americans early and often whenever they tried to get to the basket or out on the break.

The USA/Russia quarterfinal will be aired live on ESPN at 11 AM ET on Thursday.

In many ways, today’s USA/Brazil game was a typical Team USA game. The Americans overcame sloppy play (22 turnovers) and poor outside shooting (2-of-11) from all players not named Kevin Durant, and survived against the Brazilians, who had every chance to steal a win against the superior talent of Team USA. But Leandro Barbosa went cold in the second half, finishing 3-of-13 from 3PT after a hot start, and Brazil came up short.

Outside of Durant (27 points, 10 rebounds) and maybe Chauncey Billups (15 points) and Derrick Rose (11 points), this team is a mess. The bench managed a paltry six points, but Coach K leaned heavily on his starters, playing each guy a minimum of 29 minutes. (Durant played 39 minutes.) There was little or no offensive movement, leaving Durant, Billups and Rose to create on their own. How a team with this much talent can turn the ball over 22 times in 40 minutes is mind-boggling.

Moreover, there was little to no enthusiasm from the U.S. bench, while the Brazilians were standing and cheering their teammates throughout the game. At one point, I think Danny Granger (zero minutes) fell asleep. (Kidding. Not really.) They played hard enough defensively, and even though they gave up a ton of open shots, they eventually wore the Brazilians down.

One reason I tuned in was to see the Spurs new center, Tiago Splitter, who Fran Fraschilla called the best center in Europe. He’s 25, moves well for his size, and has a pretty nice jump hook with both the right and the left hands. I suspect he’ll be in foul trouble for the entire month of November as he figures out how NBA officials are going to call the game, but he has the potential to be as good as any center Tim Duncan has played with since David Robinson. (I realize that’s not saying a whole lot.)

The Americans are 2-0 at the FIBA World Championship, and today they’ll face their toughest test to date, as they take on international power Brazil. Here’s ESPN’s preview of the Brazilians:

Even with the talent displayed by Marcelinho Huertas, Leandro Barbosa and Splitter, Varejao is still the key to this team, no matter which way we look at it. In his participation in a recent friendly tournament in Logroño, Spain, Varejao’s defense was the factor that kept Brazil in the game after the absence of Nene and Splitter.

In the highly physical international play, there may be no one better than the Cleveland Cavaliers power forward to keep a team together and provide scoring opportunities for Splitter and Barbosa.

The only gray area is in the team’s adjustment to Magnano, who replaces Spain’s Moncho Monsalve, who took the helm in 2008, failed to qualify the team to the 2008 Beijing Olympics and then had to leave the job because of health concerns.

Anyone would say that changing coaches midway through an Olympic cycle is hard and that it affects the players, who probably got used to a style of work and professional trust. And this is where Magnano may run into problems.

The game is on ESPN at 2:30 PM ET.

ESPN has the highlights.

Kevin Durant led the U.S. with 25 points and had two huge blocks in the waning seconds to secure the one-point exhibition win.

The U.S. went to zone after Derrick Rose’s go-ahead free throws and Durant did the rest with a pair of blocks on Ricky Rubio and Rudy Fernandez.

Even though Spain played without its best player, Pau Gasol, they’re still one of the top international teams in the world, so this is a good win for this young U.S. team.

It took some doing, but I finally found the box score. (Warning: It’s in Spanish.)

Chris Mannix of SI.com has the details:

When Team USA broke camp in Las Vegas last month, before reuniting this week in New York for more workouts, implementing a zone defense wasn’t even on its radar. Pressure was the word of the week, with U.S. coaches convinced that the team’s length and athleticism would make it a dangerous pressing unit in the upcoming FIBA World Championships.

However, recent circumstances — specifically the withdrawal of most of the team’s top big men — has led to a shift in that thinking. With Amar’e Stoudemire, David Lee and Brook Lopez bowing out of the tournament, which begins Aug. 28, rebounding has become a major point of concern. Tyson Chandler and JaVale McGee are the only natural centers on the roster, while Kevin Love and Lamar Odom are the only true power forwards.

Playing zone, coaches say, will position more bodies near the backboards. To that end, the U.S. has tapped assistant coach Jim Boeheim, who has employed the zone at Syracuse for more than three decades, to teach the principles of the defense to the U.S. team.

“It can take away the inside and take away the offensive flow,” Krzyzewski said. “If you really play it well, people think you give up the three in it but you can match up pretty well in it.”

With the right personnel and enough practice, a zone can be extremely difficult to score on. It gets a bad rap because too often teams turn to it in desperation when they’re already getting killed and they haven’t practiced it all week. But when players know their assignments, it can be a great defensive weapon.

The key is to force three-point shooters to drive and pull up for difficult 15-18 footers that they haven’t practiced as much. There is always help in position with a zone, so the perimeter defenders can aggressively close on a shooter without worrying too much about the help that’s behind him.

Jim Boeheim is a master of the zone so if anyone can get Team USA ready, he can.

ESPNsoccernet has a great profile of Giuseppe Rossi, a soccer player who grew up in New Jersey who landed a spot on Italy’s National Team for the 2010 World Cup. Many fans of USA soccer refer to him as “the one that got away,” since he would be a huge asset to the American team.

All that was left from a U.S. perspective was to wait and see how Rossi’s Italian dream played out. He didn’t make a single misstep. In the summer of 2007, Rossi was called in to play for Italy’s U21 team at the European championship. In the summer of 2008, he was called in to play for Italy in the Olympics and ended up the leading scorer in that under-23 competition. By October, it was official. Named to the senior Italian team for a World Cup qualifier against Bulgaria, Giuseppe Rossi became a member of the Azzurri. He would never be allowed to play for the USA.

Whatever people might say about his patriotism, Rossi’s achievement can’t be overstated. Not only is he one of only two players on the Italian squad who weren’t born in Italy, but by playing for Villarreal, in Spain’s La Liga, he’s also one of only two players who don’t earn their living with an Italian club. (That could change soon, as it’s hotly rumored that Rossi is headed back to Serie A this summer.) He has broken into one of the most exclusive clubs in sports, against very serious odds. “Rossi is a little champion,” Italy manager Marcello Lippi said last summer. “He can play with his left foot or right foot. He can play anywhere on the front line, the way Lionel Messi plays for Barcelona.”

High praise, to be sure. But while a spot for Rossi on Italy’s 23-man World Cup roster seems likely, there are no guarantees. Plus, with talented strikers like Antonio Di Natale and Alberto Gilardino ahead of him on Lippi’s depth chart, any minutes he sees in South Africa will likely come off the bench. That might not have been the case had he chosen a different, safer path. Even before the car accident that severely injured U.S. striker Charlie Davies, a forward of Rossi’s quality would have been getting serious minutes for the U.S. “He’s a talented young player,” says Bradley, choosing his words carefully so as not to disparage any of the strikers in his player pool. But Arena can be more blunt. “He’s certainly good enough to play for the U.S.,” says the former coach. “I don’t think there’s any question about that.”

When asked to recall the goal that made him the player American fans love to hate, Rossi gets flustered. He grew up admiring Derek Jeter, and like the Yankees captain, Rossi is a perfectly polite interview who loathes talking about himself. “It was great to score, of course, but if I could have picked any team in the world to score against, the United States would have been my last choice,” he says. “I root hard for America — against anyone but Italy.”

Hopefully he makes the final roster. It will be another cool storyline in what could be a great World Cup. Most Americans will be focused on the early match between Team USA and England, but Rossi may provide some more drama is he gets some playing time.

The Associated Press is reporting that Mike Krzyzewski will lead the U.S. Men’s Basketball program through the 2012 Olympics in London.

Chairman Jerry Colangelo had already announced that he would return. Assistant coaches Mike D’Antoni, Nate McMillan and Jim Boeheim will also return.

Entrepreneurs have said that timing is a key ingredient for making a good idea into a successful business venture. Major League Baseball has failed to read its own marketplace in regards to the World Baseball Classic. It is just bad timing to play this tournament at the beginning of spring training.

Commissioner Bud Selig has said that March is the only realistic time of the year to play the WBC. I disagree with him. This tournament needs to be moved to the middle of the summer if the WBC is going to become baseball’s premier global event. If not, then do not expect crisp, memorable games from athletes not yet in game shape.

The United States’ three-run come-from-behind victory over Puerto Rico last Tuesday night should have been the top story the next morning. Instead, the outcome was scrolled underneath a highlight package of a NIT opening round game or copy filler in your local newspaper.

Why?

Well, sport fans are not watching or paying attention to the WBC. No, they’re preoccupied with the NCAA tournament that has firmly established itself as a the major sporting event for this time of the year.

Fans cannot get excited about the WBC if the best players in baseball are not playing in the event. And the ones that are playing, many of them are not ready to compete at a world-class level. Where’s Tim Lincecum or Roy Halladay? They should be anchoring the United States pitching staff in this competition. Team USA should not be relying on the arms of Jeremy Guthrie or Ted Lilly in an elimination game.

Do you think the Netherlands would have defeated the Dominican Republic twice in a competition if they were playing at mid-season? And wouldn’t it be great to see Johan Santana of Venezuela trading strikes with Japan’s Dice-K for all the world to watch. This could happen if the WBC is played every two years in place of the All-Star Game in July. How about a single elimination format, with the finals to be played on Sunday evening in front of a prime time audience? No other sporting event would be competing with baseball for the almighty TV ratings.

Baseball owners might not have any interest in giving up a week’s worth of revenue during the high point of their year, and the idea of scrapping the All-Star game every two years might be enough to give the baseball purist a heart attack, but some playoff contenders might welcome a week off to catch their breath for the second half of the baseball season.

Changes need to take place to make the WBC a world event. Right now, this tournament is nothing more than glorified spring training contest.