Denmark Hands USA Second Loss in China

Carl Berman

23 Jun 2015

Blog

1 comment

Jiahe, China – Denmark (1-1) held off a late American rally to defeat the NetScouts Basketball USA All-Stars (0-2) 72-63 before a sellout crowd of 2,200 at the Jiahe County Gymnasium. 6’7 Darko Jukic led the winners with 18 points, connecting on 7-of-8 shots from the field. Andrew Warren got hot late to lead the USA for the second straight game with 21 points, hitting on 5-of-11 three-pointers.

Once again the USA got out well early but Denmark came back to take a 2-point lead at the end of the first quarter. They extended the lead to 37-26 at halftime with the USA only scoring nine points in the second quarter. Tyrone White’s long three-pointer at the end of the third quarter cut Denmark’s lead to seven points. Warren’s corner three brought the USA to within 63-60 with 2:02 remaining but then the USA ran out of gas and Denmark finished strongly for the win.

Poor shooting hurt the Americans as they connected on only 35 percent of their two-point attempts, shot only 9-of-31 (29%) from long-distance and made only 50 percent from the charity stripe (8-of-16). Denmark beat the USA on the glass to a +12 advantage. The Americans took care of the ball somewhat better reducing their turnovers to 15 from the previous 22 in their first game.

Tyrone White was the other American in double-figures with 13 points. White was more effective from mid-range and off penetration (5-of-6) than he was from long distance (1-of-8). Josiah Heath battled the Denmark bigs throughout the game and grabbed 12 rebounds. Oregon’s Johnathan Loyd led the team with six assists, several in the late game rally.

USA All-Stars Head Coach Bruce Chavka: “We played much better team ball tonight but need to have a more complete effort over 40 minutes to get a win. It was a great arena and environment. Some of our guys stepped up and fought hard down the stretch. We should continue to improve as a team”.

The game was held in the city of Jiahe in a small, filled to capacity, non-air conditioned gym. It was a great atmosphere with the locals very enthusiastic in being able to see their first international game in many years. The players were mobbed by the local fans. We had a police escort during the 1.75 hour journey to and from Jiahe.

NetScouts Basketball USA All-Stars (17-9-21-16 = 63)

Johnathan Loyd (Oregon) 5 points, 3 rebounds, 6 assists, 2 steals

Garrett Nevels (Hawaii) 5 points, 4 rebounds, 2 assists, 2 steals

Tyler Gaffaney (Claremont) 1 point, 1 assist

Tyrone White (Bakersfield/D-League) 13 points, 3 rebounds, 2 assists, 1 steal

Andrew Warren (Bradley/D-League) 21 points, 7 rebounds, 1 steal

Kyle Coston (Portland State/New Zealand) 3 points, 5 rebounds

Keith Chamberlain (Grinnell/D-League) 6 points, 5 rebounds, 2 assists, 1 steal

Josiah Heath (Canisius) 9 points, 12 rebounds, 2 steals, 2 blocks

Teeng Akol (Western Kentucky/Mongolia) 0 points, 3 rebounds

Joe Wolfinger (Citadel/Japan) 0 points, 0 rebounds

Countryside between Chenzhou and Jiahe

Our game was a 4pm game with China and Slovenia playing at 8pm. We’ll update this article later today with the score of that game.

Tonight is the last game in this group of cities with a contest against host China at 8pm. Tomorrow is a travel day to the tournament in Shenzhen.

You can subscribe to our RSS feed from the upper right corner of our home page, follow us on Facebook, or on twitter.

Any international players interested in coming to the USA to play in college, prep school or high school can contact us here.  We are looking for interns and sales associates. If you’re interested contact us and forward your resume.