Venezuela 100, U.S. Virgin Islands 90

August 26, 2007 � Las Vegas, Nevada

Both Venezuela and the U.S. Virgin Islands had a lot riding on today�s game, as the winner would secure a berth in the second round of the tournament and the loser would be going home. Hector Romero�s 29 points and 10 rebounds helped Venezuela advance by the count of 100-90. The Virgin Islands, which fell to 0-4, will now be bidding adieu to the rest of the field in the FIBA Americas Championship 2007.

Jason Edwin did everything he could to keep his team in the game, scoring 32 points in a losing effort for the Virgin Islands, who were without the services of guard Carl Krauser due to extreme dehydration.

Luis Bethelmy�s dunk plus the foul with 15.1 seconds remaining brought the Venezuelan crowd to its� feet. The Venezuelan supporters would no sooner sit back down than they would rise again to cheer Bethelmy, who after missing the free throw, grabbed his own rebound and layed it in to ice the victory.

NESTOR SALAZAR, VENEZUELA HEAD COACH
You said you were satisfied after the games you've played, but not happy. Now that you got the results you wanted to make it to the next round, what do you think about what's ahead?
When you come to this type of tournament, you always have to maintain a positive mind. You're trying to do the best you can for your country and we had a clear goal, which was to defeat the most accessible teams in our group, which were Canada and the Virgin Islands. Canada we almost defeated and against the U.S., we were the team that scored the most points and the one that the U.S. scored the least points against. Against Brazil, we had a great first half, but our team is young and we still need more international experience. As far as the second round of the tournament, all the teams we're facing are pretty even. Argentina, Uruguay, Puerto Rico and Mexico are all teams that we've played well against in the past and like I told the kids, the table is served for us to improve our performance in the tournament moving forward.

Something that we saw throughout the game was a positive attitude among the team members, regardless of the score. Does this have anything to do with your motivational talk prior to the game and some type of mental work?
The group of players I have knows well that we have to play as friends. There's a great harmony and that has kept us very united. In the first two quarters we had 16 turnovers. When we went into the dressing room I told them to stay focused and motivated in order recover. Otherwise, we couldn't do it. Our focus was to minimize turnovers, try to push the ball to the shooter, who was Hector, and they were able to do that. But they still remained anxious and that's the part I have to control with this team, because part of the characteristics of a young team is anxiety.

What do you think about Greivis?
Greivis is a talented player, I've known him since before he was born and he's always been the same way. But he has a tough mind. When he does something wrong, he immediately tries to fix it. He's only 20 years old and already assumes a huge responsibility on the court. But he still has to work on a lot of things - he's young and has a long road ahead.

MANUEL BARRIOS, VENEZUELA
It seems like the big men, you, Hector, had a lot of energy today and fresher legs than the Virgin Islands team. You really attacked both courts rebounding. Can you talk about your efforts today?
I've been working on that. Hector, as coach said, is a great leader on the court. I've been doing my job and when we practice exercises during training, it helps us to work better as a team, and that's what I'm here to do, help.

You and Marriaga were important and worked well on the interior, can you comment on that?
We realized from the beginning of the game, that Miguel could take short shots and Hector could take shots inside and out of the paint. That was the other team's weakness. So that's what we did, we passed the ball inside, moved it around and shot when we had an opportunity.

TEVESTER ANDERSON, VIRIGIN ISLANDS HEAD COACH
Talk about the tournament and how you felt your team played.
We came in expecting to get at least one win and to advance. We have two of our key players hurt, our center was out yesterday and one of our guards, our second leading scorer was out. We don't have a deep line up. Give Venezuela credit, they came out with a lot of energy, they played hard for 40 minutes, and when you have that you have the chance to win. Our team had low energy today, we played a real hard-fought game yesterday, and they had the day off yesterday.

Did you come in with the second round as a goal and just fell short of that?
We aren't very deep and when of our troops go down, we have a hard time replacing that. Most teams here are much deeper than we are. We didn't an NBA player on our team; every team here has a player with NBA experience. We thought Raja Bell was going to play but he had surgery about four weeks ago and he started practicing and running on it and had some swelling in his knee so he could not play. He is the one player that could have competed in these games. His leadership was missed.

What is this for the program now, what are you going to assess for the 2010 World Championship?
We have to go back to the drawing board a little bit. I think we have a few kids that we felt like could have helped us a little bit, if we can get Raja Bell back for us next summer that will be huge for us.