For two days, word had spread around the ever-expanding world of basketball that the place that invented peach baskets, Wilt, John Wooden, "Hoosiers" and MJ was ready to be gored. In an Olympics full of half-filled arenas, the Olympic Indoor Hall filled up — at 2:30 in the afternoon — for Spain vs. USA. Fans from Greece, Spain, Lithuania, China, Argentina, Australia, Italy and all the other countries baying at America's door took most of the seats. Hardy Americans who ignored worries about terrorism, $2,000 air fares, $400-a-night hotels and the Athens heat also showed up, and they were in good voice, but it was still a lot like Democrats in Utah. It would not have been wise to settle any scores in the parking lot.

Each time Spain scored, the crowd roared. Each time a call went against Spain, the crowd jeered. Taken the wrong way, it could have been an indictment on freedom, apple pie, Hollywood, Disneyland, man defense . . . our whole way of life.

But Brown, for one, chose not to take it that way. "I think it's a good thing people are cheering for other people," he said. "I look at it as a compliment, that we are still considered to be the big guy on the block, that we have the best players, the best programs. I would hope they would cheer for the underdog. They do it in our country. They even cheered for Detroit."

Ironically, the bumpy road that brought Team USA in as underdogs against Team Spain may have helped, according to Brown. "Everything we've gone through, losing to Italy in Germany (in a warmup game), playing so poorly against Puerto Rico, giving the game away against Lithuania," he said, running through the low points of the past month, "has probably helped us. Sometimes adversity is a good thing, it can bring you together."

Beating Spain, a team with players who ranged in age from 7 to 16 in the summer of 1992 when the original U.S. Dream Team played in Spain and began the run of U.S. gold medals this team is trying to extend, required being much better than OK.

Since those 1992 Olympics, basketball has become the world's sport.

Consider that in the 1992 NBA draft, one foreign-born player was selected.

In the last two NBA drafts, 39 have been taken. The Dream Team in Barcelona, as the coach of that team, Chuck Daly, recently told USA Today, "is why we have 74 international players in the NBA."

One of them, Spain's Pau Gasol, 24, who grew up in Barcelona and plays for the Memphis Grizzlies, scored 29 points in trying to get the Americans out of the Olympics Thursday. Every one of his points earned thunderous cheers.

But without the crowd and seemingly without momentum, basketball made in America still somehow managed to prevail.

It's no Dream Team, or even America's Best Team. As one observor noted, "It isn't Shaq, Kobe, KG, T-Mac and Kidd."

But it is what it is, and for another day at least, it was good enough to get booed.

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Lee Benson is in Athens to report on the 2004 Summer Games for Deseret Morning News readers. This is his ninth assignment to cover the Olympics.Please send e-mail to benson@desnews.com.