FINAL - Domingo 20 de junio de 1999
ARGENTINA 67 - BRASIL 73
Argentina: Alejandro Montecchia 16, Juan Espil 16, Leandro Palladino 0, Luis Scola 11 y Ruben Wolkowyski 6 (Formacion Inicial); Lucas Victoriano 2, Sergio Aispurua 8, Emanuel Ginobili 4, Juan Sanchez 0 y Andres Nocioni 4. Entrenador: Julio Lamas.
Brasil: Demetrius 11, Caio Cazziolatto 14, Vanderlei 20, Sandro 11 y Josuel 6 (Formacion Inicial); Aylton Tesh 4, Andre Rato 6 y Luiz Fernando 1. Entrenador: Helio Rubens.
Publico: 3.950 espectadores.

Brazil beated Uruguay 102-85, so the first semifinal will be between Argentina (winner of group B) and Uruguay (Second on group A), Brazil is waiting for the winner of Venezuela and Ecuador, Venezuela should win easily, but Peru has already complicated Venezuela. The game will be broadcasted after the second game between Knicks and Spurs, so I will tell you the final score tomorrow.

    Day 4

Brasil 93 - Bolivia 59
Is the first time in history that Brazil score less than 100 points against Bolivia.

On a very intense game played tonight Argentina defeated Venezuela 98-72.

The game started played at full speed with Venezuela making its first shot with 10 seconds played an Argentina turning the ball over in the following fast break.
Juan Espil played its best game on the National Team since 1996 Olympics games assuming his new role as the team leader.
It was a close game in the beginning with Argentina taking a four point lead (14-10) with four minutes played thanks to a Technical foul to Venezuela's bench, but Venezuela called a time out and in the next 8 minutes made a 28-9 run to take its biggest lead (23-38) with 8 minutes to play in the first half. At that point Venezuela was clearly dominating the board and Argentina wasn't able to play good defence, and on the offensive end Espil was the only scorer (13 of the 23 points). Aispurua got into the game for Argentina with Scola having three fouls and with his intensity on the boards ant the very good defence of "Pepe" Sànchez and some points from Ginòbili and Espil, Argentina started to close the gap. With twelve seconds remaining on the half Argentina was down by five with the ball, the play was designed for Espil, but he couldn't take a good shot, so he passed the ball to Ginòbili, who scored a nine meter three pointers with two players trying to guard him, so the half ended with Venezuela leading only by three (46-49).
Argentina started the second half played ferocious defence, so it took Venezuela more than eight minutes to get its first point, by that time Argentina was up by ten (59-49) with six points from Montecchia. Argentina killed Venezuela's hope of getting back in the game with a couple of three pointers from Palladino that avoided any try to come back. The last ten minutes lasted more than half an hour as a lot of fouls were called, and Argentina slowly extended the lead to 28 points (98-70) with ten seconds to play with the great conduction from Victoriano who has regained his confidence.
A total of 72 free throws were shot, Argentina went 32/38 while Venezuela were 28/34, this is nothing new for these team, because in Maracaibo '97 Argentina and Venezuela played 2 times a near 160 fouls were called.
Venezuela will play tomorrow against Ecuador (needs to win in order to qualify for the semifinals) while Argentina has a day off waiting for Saturday's semi final.

    Day 2

In the second day of play the scores were closer than in day 1: Venezuela defeated peru just by 9 points (84-75), yesterday Venezuela had won by 48 against Colombia while Peru had lost by 67 against Argentina. Uruguay defeated Chile by 21 (93-72) and Brazil beat Paraguay 93-53

    Day 1

Uruguay easily defeated Bolivia 126-52 in the opening game of the 38º South American ChampionshipS. Venezuela defeated Colombia 100-52. Colombia's starting lineup has an average age of 18 years and the power forward and center height is 194 cm.

Classification Round

    15/6/99

GROUP A
URUGUAY 93 - CHILE 75
BRASIL 93 - PARAGUAY 53

GROUP B
VENEZUELA 84 - PERU 75
ARGENTINA 111 - ECUADOR 37
Argentina: Alejandro Montecchia 0, Juan Espil 20, Leandro Palladino 10, Luis Scola 12 y Ruben Wolkowyski 10 (Formacion Inicial); Andres Nocioni 15, Emanuel Ginobili 15, Lucas Victoriano 5, Leonardo Gutierrez 11, Sergio Aispurua 5, Juan Sanchez 8 y Hernan Jasen 0. Entrenador: Julio Lamas.
Ecuador: Jeff Escalante 4, Engels Tenorio 0, Marco Sanchez 10, Ayub Sanchez 4 y Jose Obando 4 (Formacion Inicial); Luis Guzman 8, Manuel Nazareno 0, Vicente Diaz 3, Cristian Escobar 2, Diego Romo 0 y Otilio Valencia 2. Entrenador: Efrain Lopez.
Argentina easily defeated Ecuador 111-37 (58-23) with 20 points of Espil and 15 from Nocioni and Ginobili. As the score indicate it was never a game, Ecuador never were up, and Argentina managed to get easy baskets by dominating the rebounds and forcing turnovers.
In Argentina made their debuts Pepe Sanchez (8 points, 9 steals and 6 assists) and Luis Scola (12 points) who didn't play on Monday due to minor injuries. Argentina needs to cut its turnovers and improve its free throw shhoting percentage in order to contend for the title.

   14/6/99

Group A
URUGUAY 126 - BOLIVIA 52
BRASIL 77 - CHILE 62

Group B
VENEZUELA 100 - COLOMBIA 52
ARGENTINA 107 - PERU 40
Argentina: Alejandro Montecchia 8, Juan Espil 4, Leandro Palladino 13, Andres Nocioni 13 y Ruben Wolkowyski 18 (Formacion Inicial); Leandro Gutierrez 14, Emanuel Ginobili 14, Sergio Aispurua 7, Lucas Victoriano 9 y Hernan Jasen 7. Entrenador: Julio Lamas.
Peru: Julio Monges 4, Juan Monges 1, Jorge Giuria 12, Guillermo Nalvarte 2 y Juan Bresani 2 (Formacion Inicial); Eduardo Vargas 3, Amador Rios 0, Larry Snyder 8, Daniel Del Carpio 2, Pedro Rebottaro 6, Felipe Camino 0 y Roberto Puente 0. Entrenador: Alejandro Castineira.
Argentina easily defeated Peru 107-40 on its debut on the 38º South American Championship.
Aregntina started the game with Montecchia, Espil, Palladino, Nocioni and Wolkowisky, Scola and Sanchez did not play due to minor injuries.
Peru scored the first basket of the game when argentinean team seemed to be a little nervous, only Palladiono scored in the first two minutes for Argentina to get a 7-5 lead. As the minutes passed, Argentina started to play better on offense and with more intensity on defense, so the gap increased fast (12-7 with 16' left; 26-13 with 10' and 36-16 with 5' to play), the first half
finished with a 51-21 lead for Argentina who had its best men in Palladino (10 points, 3 fouls), Ginobili (14 pts) and Wolkowisky (9 pts 5/8 free throws). The second half started with a basket of Peru that was answered by 13 consecutive points for Argentina who relaxed on defense so Peru scored 9 points in three minutes, then the argentinean coach called for a time out and Argentina improved its defense so Peru scored only 3 field goals and a total of 8 points in 12'30'' with Argentina scoring 37 points in that time.
Final stats:
Argentina - Peru 107-40 (Montecchia 8, Espil 4, Palladino 13, Nocini 13, wolkowisky 18 (starting lineup); Asipurua 7, Gutierrez 14, Ginobili 14, Victoriano 9, Jasen 7 -)
Argentina will play tomorrow against Ecuador (in 1997: Argentina 85- Ecuador
59), needs to improve its three point shooting, cut the turnovers and get Espil
more involved in the Offense.