Talk about home-court advantages.
The fans couldn’t have been louder, the emotions couldn’t have run higher and the result-for the host country-couldn’t have been better at the Pan Am Games.
At the same Multi Sports Stadium where it outlasted the United States in volleyball a week earlier, Argentina used a 60-point first half and the power of a raucous crowd to defeat the United States 90-86 for the basketball gold medal Saturday night.
The loss marked the third straight Pan Am Games the United States failed to win the basketball gold. The last two times, it was a college all-star team that failed. This time it was a collection of minor-leaguers from the CBA.
Juan Espil led the Argentines with 22 points. Rumeal Robinson had 16 for the U.S.
The Americans reached the 400-medal mark Saturday when wrestler Zeke Jones, a former world champion and 1992 Olympic silver medalist, took the gold at 114 1/2 pounds. Jones, of Chandler, Ariz., beat Cuba’s Carlos Verela 5-2.
The women’s softball team stretched its unprecedented international winning streak to 105 by beating Puerto Rico 4-0 for the gold. World-record holder Javier Sotomayor, one of the celebrities of these games, took the gold in the high jump at 7 feet 10 1/2 inches.
