"Three Seconds from Gold" Statis-Pro Basketball Teams from the Games of the XX Olympiad (1972)

Three Seconds from Gold - Teams from the Games of the XX Olympiad (1972)
Original Publication Date: July 19, 2014.
Special thanks to the IOC Historical Archives and Museum, Lausanne, Switzerland.

1972_Olympic_Basketball_Teams_for_Statis_Pro_Basketball_v2.zip

Rules for Adapting Statis-Pro Basketball to FIBA Olympic Play

1972 Soviet Olympic Team
1972 US Olympic Team
1972 Cuban Olympic Team
1972 Italian Olympic Team

Other Statis-Pro Basketball Links

This fileset contains the final four teams of the 1972 Men's Basketball Tournament,
including the Soviet Union, led by Hall of Fame shooting guard Sergei Belov and F/C Aleksandr Belov, the United States, with guards Doug Collins and Tommy Henderson, forwards Jim Brewer and Tom McMillen, and C Dwight Jones, third place Cuba, led by C Pedro Chappé and SF Ruperto Herrera, and fourth place Italy, led by F Ivan Bisson and C Dino Meneghin.  By now we know the stories of the top two teams very well, but 1972 was also the high water mark for the Cuban and Italian teams in international competition. Meneghin and Herrera are considered the best International players from each of their respective countries.

(Don't think that the Russians are easy to beat, because they aren't, and they become particularly difficult to handle if they gain control of the glass from the taller US squad, and can fast break to avoid the American trap and press.  The secret is to move Sasha Belov to center (as in real life) to allow him some shooting and rebounding room, to sub the guards wisely, and to hope that somehow PF Zharmukamedov can hold his own on the boards against Brewer and McMillen at PF.  The US is a team of bricklayers, but their rebounding and defense are Kryptonite to the Russians if they do not try to match up, with reserve guards Kevin Joyce and Ed Ratleff particularly deadly on steals.  As the included FIBA rules modification document suggests, make the Soviets the Home Team to get that extra feeling of Cold War paranoia, because the refs will side with them on rebounds and turnovers from the FACs pretty regularly.)

The World was gaining on the United States in basketball.  The transitory bitterness of this one point in time can be somewhat sweetened by the current international flavor of the modern NBA, which now routinely draws on the skills of the best players from around the globe.  This would have been unheard of in 1972.  This Soviet win, as well as the performance of later Yugoslavian teams ended that form of parochialism forever.