Additional Quotes >> USA 81, Brazil 56

June 20, 2012 • Sao Sebastiáo do Paraiso, Brazil

Billy Donovan, USA head coach
What’s winning a gold medal mean to you?
I told our guys after that they’re the ones that made it all possible. There was a lot of sacrifice. We had a lot of good players and I think they all understood that they all could probably score more, they all could probably do more, but maybe it wouldn’t be the best thing for our team. I was just really proud of the way they sacrificed for one another, they sacrificed for our country and they really wanted to win. If it wasn’t for those guys as the head coach and one of the coaches who was part of this I would have never and the chance to experience this. So I got the chance to experience something I’ve never experience in my life and I owe a lot to those guys. When you have them for three days of tryouts and a week and you have to play in this type of competition you never know how its going to go and I thought they dud a terrific job.

As a coaching staff you had a tough job of making a team out of 12 really talented players.
I thought the committee and everybody helped. I thought we put together a great group. Obviously Shaka and I had worked together; Mark (Few) and I had known each other. But what a ball being with those guys, great guys, great coaches, we had a lot of fun together. I was given the title head coach but you know what, we were all just coaching the team and everybody contributed and everybody did what they had to do to help use get to where wanted to get to.

What was the difference between the first half and the second half tonight?
I though in the first half they went zone and we got a little stagnant and I thought we turned the ball over way too much. We had some opportunities on some fast breaks that we got nothing out of it. The one thing we were fortunate in the first half was they were 9-for-19 from the foul line. I thought in the second half we got up and down the floor, we were pushing it more, more up tempo, we attacked the basket, we attacked the pant and I thought our defense was really, really good in the second half. We took away 3-pointers and easy baskets and that enabled us to get out on the fast break.

Was the second half defense the best the team played defensively?
Probably the best defense. I actually though against Argentina we played really, really well in the second half. But probably defensively this was the best defensive effort we had. I give our kids a lot of credit just because they wanted to win, they really wanted to win and they were all focused on that. They deserve it, they played great and I’m happy that we could all share in this.

WTalk about Julius' play in the second half.
I thought Julius made some really, really big plays, athletic plays around the basket. He really stepped up and I thought he played exceptionally well yesterday against Argentina, then to come back and follow it up was terrific.

Mark Few , USA Assistant Coach
How does it feel to win the gold medal?
It’s an awesome, awesome feeling. It’s been a great experience. Working with Billy (Donovan) and Shaka (smart) I’ll never forget these two weeks we had together. We became really close, learned a lot, and just a definitely memory for a lifetime. And then the way the guys bought in. I’m really proud how they let us coach them and they got better. We got better from day one to right now. Our team deserves a lot of credit for that

Talk about trying to get the team from 12 individuals into a team? Sometimes that’s not an easy thing to do.?
DNo it really isn’t. I would say the one thing this team did as well as anything was play unselfishly, at time almost too unselfishly. We really got back in the second half tonight of doing what made us successful all week and that was defending, taking care of the basketball, getting on the backboard and running. And when we were doing that we were a very good basketball team. It was a lot of fun.

Shaka Smart , USA Assistant Coach
How does it feel to win the gold medal?
I thought the guys did a terrific job of playing unselfishly the whole tournament and they really defended well in this last game against Brazil. I thought that was the difference. It helped that we had a terrific head coach in Billy Donovan, it was great to work with him and Mark Few is one of the best coaches in the country so it was great experience for me.
I just felt like we had to play hard in order to win. It was win or go home so we came out there, we played strong, and we got the win.

The game plan was to try and keep them off the 3-point line, and the team seemed to do a good job of that?
Definitely, we closed out hard, closed out long to make them put the ball on the floor, to make them shoot off the dribble and I think we did a good job of that.

What kind of chore was it to get 12 different guys to come together as a team like this one was?
Well these guys are all used to playing major, major minutes and being the best guy on their team so to ask them to sacrifice, play less than they’re used to, shoot less than they’re used to, that is a challenge. But I thought he guys did a terrific job to a man of being unselfish and caring more about winning the gold medal than about themselves.

Nathanie Britt, II (Gonzaga H.S., D.C./Upper Marlboro, Md.)
How does it feel to win the gold medal?
It feels great. I think this is the greatest accomplishment I’ve ever achieved in my life.

Did it make it mean more because it was a close game?
Yeah I think it does, it was a little bit more intense. Everybody was out here cheering for Brazil and I think we enjoyed it a lot.

Sam Dekker (Sheboygan Lutheran H.S./Sheboygan, Wis.)
How’s it feel to win the gold?
It feels great. I never thought I’d be able to say that in my basketball career. It’s something very special to me, I’m always going to cherish it. Right now it’s sinking in, but months, years down the road when I’m looking back I’ll be like ‘man, I went all the way to Brazil to compete for a gold medal.’ It’s a great group of guys here, 12 great players, and we went out and played together and yeah we got a gold, went 5-0, and we spent 17 long days together but it was worth it in the end because we got that gold.

Shaq Goodwin (Southwest DeKalb H.S./Decatur, Ga.)
How’s it feel to win the gold?
IIt’s an indescribable feeling because we started way back June 5 and now its June 20, so it’s been 15 days and feels like its been two months. We got to Colorado, we couldn’t breath, it’s just been a lot of hard work that finally paid off. Wining the gold is like all my sacrifices paid off because if we had come here and lost it would have seemed like a whole bunch of time wasted.

The 12 players selected for this team had to set aside their egos to become a team. And this was a team, different players on different nights stepped up to contribute. Talk about becoming a team.
I feel like we’re the Dream Team (laughing), because if you think about it, we were winning by 50 points. We had 12 superstars and somehow we managed to win the gold. You know with a team full of superstars everybody has to push their ego aside to win the gold and that’s what we all did.

Jerami Grant (DeMatha Catholic/Bowie, Md.)
How does it feel to win the gold after all the work you had to put in?
It feels great. We came out and played hard, and we played together as a team and that’s what it took to win the gold.

Did it make it mean a little more because this was a tight game for a half?
Yeah definitely, it meant a lot playing in a good game, a tight game. Either way it would have felt great to win the gold, but I feel like in this environment, when you’re playing in Brazil against Brazil it added a lot more meaning to it..

Montrezl Harrell (Hargrave Military Academy/Tarboro, N.C.)
How did it feel to win the gold.
It feels great. It really means a lot that we came here and played against the home team on their turf and won. We had to go through a lot of adversity as far as the crowd and different things so it feels great to come out here and get the gold.

How great was is it that the 12 players of this team came together and played like you guys did, like a true team?
It was great because all these guys contribute something different to the team and I think we started to realize that and we all bought in to everything coach said. It was great; I had a lot of fun.

What about the experience on the whole?
It was a great experience because I got to come to Brazil and represent my country, fight for a gold medal, and we ended up winning..

Jake Layman (King Phillip Regional H.S./Wrentham, Mass.)
How does it feel to win the gold?
Oh it’s an unbelievable feeling, we got what we came here for. We worked hard coming into it and that hard work paid off.

It was a tight game for over a half. Did that make it mean more, the fact that you had to preserver for this win?
Yeah, definitely. They pushed us to play even better in the second half and we did and we won.

Rodney Purvis (Upper Room Christian/Raleigh, N.C.)
How does it feel to win the gold?
It feel really good to be cool with all these guys over the course of our AAU careers and building our relationship with all them so it was all good coming here and having the chance to win a gold medal with them.

A lot of work went in to winning this gold medal.
Yeah, definitely. In Colorado Springs (where training camp started) we had to all come together on the same page. All of use are real good players on our teams and so we all had to sacrifice some things, but we all came together to win the gold.

Julius Randle(Prestonwood Christian Academy/ McKinney, Texas)
How it feel to win the gold medal after 17 days of working?
Yeah after long practices, two-a-days, everything we did, to finally see it all come and pay off that was just an amazing experience.

It was a team effort through all five game wasn’t it?
Yes, this is everybody’s gold no matter the circumstances, whether you were playing or not, getting shots, everybody’s goal was to just get the gold medal. So we all put our egos to the side and on and off the court we were really a team, we really bonded throughout the time we were together and that showed on the court as well..

You had a double-double tonight, you really stepped up in the second half when the game was tight.
We weren’t really playing our game in the first half so I just wanted to lock in and bring energy to the team, bring leadership to the team, and in the second half I just really wanted to focus in and be aggressive on both ends and on the defensive and offensive glass. That’s kind of what I wanted to bring to the team.

Did winning the gold mean more because it was a close game at half?
Yeah, it means a lot. We went through a lot of wars with these guys and a lot of hard times in practices and stuff like that, so, yeah, it means a lot to win the gold. But you know this was a tough game, but we all locked in and focused in and we weren’t going to lose this game. Seeing the team do that not only gave me motivation, it gave everybody motivation, it was great.

James Robinson (DeMatha Catholic H.S./Mitchellville, Md.)
How does it feel to win the gold?
It’s a great feeling. Rasheed (Sulaimon) and I played in the Nike Hoop Summit together and didn’t get the result we wanted, so to work this hard with this team and this coaching staff is a great feeling to know that we came up with the victory.

This took a lot of work, a lot of sacrifices didn't it?
Yeah, a lot of work, a lot of sacrifice, but the coaching staff and all the people behind the scenes did a great job of creating this family and I guess it was around 17 days to ultimately win a gold.

You gave a good spark in the first half and had a couple of important drives for layups.
I just tried to be aggressive, push the ball. Playing on this team there are so many other great scorers that the other team was kind of focusing on the so I kind of had an open lane. In the second half all our big guys did a great job of protecting our basket, catching passes and finishing and they kind of made the game easy for us.

Marcus Smart (Marcus H.S./Flower Mound, Texas)
How does it feel to win the gold?
It feels great, this is probably the highest level any of us have played on and it was difficult to get a group of guys that in their own state were the man and put them on a team together and have them unify together to come out here and do what we accomplished today and that’s to win a gold for our country.

Was it worth all the hard work to all put into this?
Oh definitely. We all gave up a lot. A couple of us that are going into freshmen year at college, we gave up our summer school, but it was all worth it because this is way bigger than what any of us has ever done, its’ way bigger than ourselves. We’re coming out here to represent our country. You know we’ve got people over in Iraq fighting, and dying, kids our age, so this is the closest thing we can get to representing our country sand that’s what we tried to do.

Jarnell Stokes (University of Tennessee/Memphis, Tenn.)
What’s it mean to you to win the gold?
It means a lot. We represented our country well; we won with class. Just the way we won, we won with no selfishness and it really seemed like guys were playing for each other.

Did it make all the work worthwhile?
It was definitely worthwhile because anything else (than gold) it was almost like win gold or bust, so we had to win the gold. I’ll definitely remember those days in Colorado. That high altitude really got to me and that’s an experience you really don’t get anywhere else.

It was a tough, grind it out game today wasn't it?
I think last game I had a big game against them, so it seemed like they were trying to stop the inside presence we have. But our guards came together, a lot of guys got a lot of steals and they had a lot of pressure. In the second half we really buckled down and played American basketball.

What was the difference between the first half and the second half?
In the first half it seemed as if they were playing off energy. The crowd was really loud as expected because we’re playing in their hometown. They really were just playing off of energy. In the second half we defended well and we also went inside too. Julius put up good numbers.

Rasheed Sulaimon (Strake Jesuit College Prep/Houston, Texas)
How does it feel to win the gold medal?
Oh man, I’m speechless right now. We worked so hard for this, since June 5, and to have all these guys come together, find chemistry and really play for our country and for all our hard work to pay off and get a gold medal it’s great. Like I said, I’m lost for words; I’m blessed; I’m honored; I’m proud to be an American; I’m everything – it’s just a great feeling.

Did it mean more that it was a close game for a half?
It meant a lot because of course it’s their home soil. We knew they were going to come out with a lot of emotion, but we did a great job of weathering the storm and when we got our second wind they couldn’t deal with it. We knew we had the tools to win the game so we just stayed focus and came out on top.