It's Time We Accept That Jeff Van Gundy Is Captain America After Leading Team USA To The World Cup

It may not seem like much, but what Jeff Van Gundy is pretty damn impressive. I’ve talked about it before. The way FIBA World Cup qualifying changed their schedule completely changed how Team USA goes about fielding teams for it. They set up qualifying similar to how soccer does it. A couple of games in a month spread out over about 18 months. All but these last two games take place during the NBA schedule and unlike soccer, the NBA isn’t going to stop their schedule to let players play for their country.

There was actually a fear that the US wouldn’t make the FIBA World Cup, which would mean they’d have to go through a whole different qualifying tournament just to make the Olympics. It’d be shocking in the basketball world despite Team USA only playing with G League players.

However, Van Gundy did an incredible coaching job before handing the title over to Gregg Popovich for the World Cup. Team USA qualified for the World Cup after beating Uruguay 78-70 over the weekend. So shout out Jeff Van Gundy. I know roughly 9 people care about this, but it’s important.

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Time to go show the world we’re still the best damn country in basketball no matter how good everyone else is getting.