Longhorns in the Olympics: Day 12

And a familiar foe will be waiting. Harrison Barnes capped the scoring with a long range three to make the final score 105-78 and send the USA swiftly into the semifinals at the top of their game.

The Americans had a slow start but utilized a 27-2 first half run to take full control of the game.

Team USA will play Team Spain in the semifinals.

After a series of tough wins, Team USA finally found their rhythm with a commanding 105-78 win against Argentina in their quarter-final duel on Wednesday and secured a semifinal spot the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro.

The answer might be nothing.

One of the biggest stars on this year’s American national team is Tamika Catchings, a three-time Olympic gold medalist, two-time World Championship gold medalist, and 10-time WNBA All-Star.

This isn’t the usual Tom Thibodeau, assistant coach for USMNT, suffocating defense from Olympics’ prior although they have lock-up defenders up and down the 12-man roster. The United States responded, going on a 7-0 run to cut the Argentine lead to 19-16. Kevin Durant scored 27 points to lead the Americans. George dropped 17 points off the bench and DeMarcus Cousins notched 15 for USA. As good as the Americans were against Argentina, their semifinal foe – Spain – looked nearly as sharp in its 92-67 quarterfinal rout of France.

But history says, Spain lost its four games to United States of America in quarterfinals in 2004 Athens Olympics, 2008 Beijing Olympics for group play and finals, 2012 London Olympics finals. No, this isn’t quite the same Argentina team that knocked the United States out of the semifinals at the 2004 Games on its way to a gold medal in Athens.

The nail-biting came to end for the Americans.

In advance of Wednesday’s game, CBS Sports’ website reported the following: “Facundo Campazzo is the kind of point guard who gave Team USA problems in group play”. When I was on the perimeter I tried to beat my man.

MEN’S VOLLEYBALL: John Speraw ran along the sideline about as close as he could to actually being in the action.

As for his breakout performance, Durant said, “When I got the ball I looked to be aggressive”. “I’m into it. It’s the Olympic Games”. Moments later, Micah Christenson pulled off a almost identical play and kept the point going.

For a while during these Olympics, though, it seemed like the USA men’s basketball team was stuck in some kind of Olympic time warp, complete with a maritime theme.

But once play began, the US rarely played up to those expectations, with one narrow victory after another as the competition toughened.

“The only thing we changed was our passion and energy”, Golden State’s Kevin Durant said, the term “Golden State’s Kevin Durant” still sounding odd. And I don’t think that’s ever going to stop. “That’s definitely going to help us in the next game”. But Paul, like so many other varsity players for America, isn’t here.

“We had a chance to grow up together and do some good things, win some games together”. “We really learned from those two matches”.

TABLE TENNIS: For the third straight Olympics, China will take home every gold medal in table tennis. “When you have fans like that, it’s incredible, man, for both teams”.

Chinese women have won every singles gold medal since the sport entered the Olympics in 1988. They have won gold at every summer Olympics since 1996, including an 86-50 victory against France at the 2012 London Olympics – and have been victorious in almost every World Cup since 1998.

Spain started with 2 losses at Olympics – to Croatia and Brazil, but later fuelled with four win over Nigeria, Lithuania, France and Argentina.

By the thousands, to the end they sang and danced and made such a mosh pit around the ledges of the upper deck that you could only hope nothing disastrous happened.