History of the 1964 United States men's Olympic basketball team
After two dominating performances in 1956 and 1960, the 1964 team seems a little lackluster. But once again the American squad was full of talent. The team was coached by Hank Iba, who would start his stint as head coach of 3 consecutive American National team squads.
The roster was once again constructed mostly of college players and a few AAU players, though by 1964 most of the good AAU squads had disbanded as the best basketball players went to college than to the NBA. But the Goodyear Wingfoots, who at one time were part of the NBA predecessor NBL, sent three players to the team. The Chicago Jamaco Saints sent another, and as usual the Philips 66ers sent a player. Jerry Shipp from the 66ers would be the last player from the team to represent the US ending a long historic line of players from the AAU powerhouse.
Most of the college players were made up of players from the west coast, as 3 of the 7 NCAA players represented schools who would eventually represent the PAC10.
The qualification process for 1964 was a bit differant than in the past and looked like something modern fans of Olympic basketball would reconize. As always, the host nation got a team in, and than the top 8 finishers from the 1960 Rome games all got a slot. Each continent also got 2 bids. The Americas were rolled into one grouping as they still are today. Finally a few weeks before Olympic play a tournament was held for 2 more slots, givng the Olympics 16 teams. The African champion United Arab Republic withdrew prior to the games, as did Czechoslovakia - who had qualified in 1960. Both teams withdrew due to political turmoil, and were replaced with Canada and Sosuth Korea.
A new pool format was set up for the games. Instead of four pools of 4 teams like in the past, there were 2 Groups of 8 teams. Each team would play the other 7 teams once and the top two teams from each Group would face the top two teams from the opposing group in the Semifinals. The US was put in Group B with Brazil, Yugoslavia, Uruguay, Finland, Australia, Peru and South Korea.
The US first opponent in the 1964 games was Australia, who the US handled with ease, getting a 78-45 victory.
The US would win a hard fought battle vs Finland in their second game. The Fins kept the score close before the US pulled away in the end.
In their thrid game vs Peru, the US once again got an easy win - but it was less dominating than many had expected.
The US finally got their crushing of an opponent on when the abused Uruguay 83-28. The Uruguayan team didnt score for the first 5 minutes of the game, and the score was 30-0; meaning the US could have not scored again and still won the game.
Yugoslavia thought they had a real chance at upsetting the USA, and for a good chunk of the game it looked as if they did. Yugoslavia lead for much of the first half, before the US was able to take the lead. Even when the US had what looked like a safe lead, the Yugoslavians came back and made it close.
Brazil had been dominating their opponents and after seeing the struggles of the US thought they could stun the Americans, but the US dominated their South American counterparts 86-53.
Going into the final Group play game the US merely needed not to lose by too much and they would be in the Semifinals, but in typical American fashion the US obliterated South Korea 116-50. The beating got so bad many fans in the stands actually booed the US for running up the score.
After a much need break the US faced Puerto Rico in the semifinals. The American territory put up a fight though but the US was just too tough and the Americans secured a 62-42 victory to advance to the gold medal game.
Once again the US would face their cold war rivals the Soviet Union. The USSR had also gone undefeated in Group play and had looked much more dominate than the Americans had. The Soviets felt that this was their year, but it was not to be. The US easily beat the Soviet squad 73-59, in a score which was much closer than the game actually was. This secured the United States' 6th gold medal in basketball.
With the US winning gold and the USSR winning silver, the bronze medal was taken by Brazil with Puerto Rico finishing fourth. The host Japan finished 10th. South Korea finished last going 0-7 and not being close in any of their games.
Dick Davies, Pete McCaffrey and Jerry Shipp never played in the NBA, though all three were invited to join teams that drafted them. Red Auerbach told Davies he had a spot on the Boston Celtics for him. Shipp would lead the Americans in scoring during the Olympics at 12.4 points per game.
A lot of the team US members went on to have very good but not great careers in the NBA. Jim Barnes was a very good center for the Knicks for a long time, Joe Caldwell would join both the NBA and ABA and make 4 all-star teams. Mel Counts would win two titles with Boston before joing the Lakers and briefly playing for the Suns, Sixers and Jazz. Jeff Mullins would be a 3 time all NBA player with the Warriors, and George Wilson would be journeyman playing for six NBA teams in his career.
Larry Brown purhaps is the most recognizable name from the team. Brown had a decent career in the NBA and the ABA, but is most famous for being a hall-of-fame head coach and guiding the 2004 Detroit Pistons to an NBA championship.
Bill Bradley became one of the most important New York Knicks players of all-time and helped them win two NBA championships. After the NBA he got into politics and became a United States Senator and in 2000 he ran for the Democratic presidential nomination - which he lost to Al Gore.
Walt Hazzard also had a very good NBA career with 6 different NBA teams before getting into coaching.
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