FIBA Americas Basketball Tournament has just began! (ouch for Andy Rautins)

The FIBA Americas Basketball Tournament has just began! Coverage on NBA-TV, FSN and the ESPN family of networks. Team USA will be featured on the ESPN Family of Networks.

The Panama team features former George Washington wing JR Danilo Pinnock, former Virginia wing Gary Forbes and former Wake Forest and Skip Prosser versatile forward Jamaal Levy. Former Arkansas head coach Nolan Richardson is now coaching Mexico (used to be Panama's head coach). Uruguay features former Majerus disgrantlee Martin Osimani (he transferred to Duquesne). The first game has just gone into overtime, Uruguay just missed a last second tip-in on an out-of-bounds play!

A preliminary tv schedule for the FIBA America's games is posted in the weekly tv guide post of this blog.

Update: Syracuse guard Andy Rautins playing for his dad for Team Canada just went down with a nasty injury :( NBA-TV analyst (former Dookie) Alaa Abnelnaby said he heard it "pop" and hoped for the best. He left the court and headed to the locker room... Also playing for Team Canada is former Pitt forward Levon Kendall and UConn scorer Denham Brown. Leonardo Barbosa of the Phoenix Suns leads Team Brazil.

Update #2: Team USA was pitching a 9-0 shutout after the first media time-out against Venezuela. Isn't it nice to have Jason Kidd as a coach on the floor point guard and a scoring machine like Kobe? The other bonus of having a coach on the floor is that he overrule Coach K (and that's a good thing!) :)