France's Ronny Turiaf's flagrant foul in the fourth quarter of Wednesday's quarter-final was bad but a chorus of boos from a largely Spanish crowd was unlike anything the London Olympic basketball tournament has seen.
Organisers and MCs have worked hard to raise the temperature during a week of often uncompetitive games in the Olympic Park's temporary basketball arena, but for most pure basketball fans something has been missing.
Maybe it is the ballot system that awarded many Londoners tickets for what is a marginal sport in Britain just to go to the Games, but there are no chants of "De-fence", no noise when players are taking free throws and only the odd awestruck roar for a big dunk.
If not for the hotdogs, half-time kiss-cam and domination of the latest instalment of a U.S. Dream Team packed with National Basketball Association (NBA) stars, one would say it was almost British.
But the switch to the 15,500 seat Greenwich Arena for the knockout stages may be just the tonic, helped by a competitive edge that saw two rough, foul-packed opening games on Wednesday go down to the wire.
source : goalzz.com
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