1997 Tournament of the Americas

Tournament details
Host country	Uruguay
City	Montevideo
Dates	21–31 August
Teams	10
Venue(s)	1 (in 1 host city)
Final positions
Champions	United States (3rd title)
Runners-up	Puerto Rico
Third place	Brazil
Fourth place	Argentina
← 1995 1999 →

The 1997 Tournament of the Americas, later known as the FIBA Americas Championship and the FIBA AmeriCup, was a basketball championship hosted by Uruguay from 21 to 31, August 1997. The games were played in Montevideo. This FIBA AmeriCup was to earn the four berths allocated to the Americas for the 1998 FIBA World Championship in Athens, Greece. The United States won the tournament, the country's third AmeriCup championship.

Qualification[edit]

Eight teams qualified during the qualification tournaments held in their respective zones in 1997; two teams (USA and Canada) qualified automatically since they are the only members of the North America zone.

• North America:  Canada,  United States
• Caribbean and Central America: Cuba,  Dominican Republic,  Mexico,  Puerto Rico
• South America:  Argentina,  Brazil,  Uruguay,  Venezuela

The draw split the tournament into two groups:

Format[edit]

• The top four teams from each group advance to the quarterfinals.
• Results and standings among teams within the same group are carried over.
• The top four teams at the quarterfinals were granted berths in the 1998 FIBA World Championship. Since the United States were already qualified as Olympic Champions, should they reach one of the top four places in the quarterfinals, the fifth team on the final standings was given the remaining berth.
• The top four teams then played an extra match to define the first six places in the final standings (1 vs. 2 for first place, 3 vs. 4 for third place and 5 vs. 6 for fifth place).

Squads[edit]

Preliminary round[edit]

Qualified for the quarterfinals

Group A[edit]

Team	Pld	W	L	PF	PA	PD	Pts	Tie
Argentina	4	3	1	317	284	+33	7	1–0
Brazil	4	3	1	328	297	+31	7	0–1
Cuba	4	2	2	307	290	+17	6	1–0
Uruguay	4	2	2	297	308	−11	6	0–1
Mexico	4	0	4	282	352	−70	4

Group B[edit]

Team	Pld	W	L	PF	PA	PD	Pts	Tie
Canada	4	3	1	403	362	+41	7	1–1 (0.527)
United States	4	3	1	368	334	+34	7	1–1 (0.524)
Venezuela	4	3	1	365	357	+8	7	1–1 (0.506)
Puerto Rico	4	1	3	330	353	−23	5
Dominican Republic	4	0	4	320	380	−60	4

Quarterfinal group[edit]

Qualified for the semifinals

The top four teams in both Group A and Group B advanced to the quarterfinal group. Then each team played the four from the other group once to complete a full round robin. Records from the preliminary groups carried over. The top two teams advanced to the first place game and the third and fourth-place teams advanced to the third place game. The fifth-place team (Cuba) and the sixth-place team (Canada) did not continue competing for the Americas Championship, but played a further game against each other, with the winner qualifying for the 1998 FIBA World Championship.

Team	Pld	W	L	PF	PA	PD	Pts	Tie
United States	8	7	1	750	673	+77	15
Puerto Rico	8	5	3	722	679	+43	13	1−0
Brazil	8	5	3	680	637	+43	13	0−1
Argentina	8	4	4	650	626	+24	12	2−1 (0.509)
Cuba	8	4	4	666	681	−15	12	2−1 (0.494)
Canada	8	4	4	699	687	+12	12	1−2 (0.504)
Venezuela	8	4	4	708	716	−8	12	1−2 (0.497)
Uruguay	8	3	5	602	648	−46	11

Final round[edit]

Fifth place game[edit]

Third place game[edit]

First place game[edit]

Awards[edit]

1997 Tournament of the Americas winners
United States Third title

Final standings[edit]

	Qualified for the 1998 FIBA World Championship
	Qualified for the 1998 FIBA World Championship (Olympic Champions)

Rank	Team	Record
	United States	8–1
	Puerto Rico	5–4
	Brazil	6–3
4	Argentina	4–5
5	Canada	5–4
6	Cuba	4–5
7	Venezuela	4–4
8	Uruguay	3–5
9	Dominican Republic	0–4
10	Mexico	0–4

United States Rusty LaRue Corey Beck Jim Farmer Jason Sasser Erik Martin Adrian Griffin Reggie Jordan Kermit Holmes Evers Burns Russ Millard Travis Williams Michael McDonald	Puerto Rico José Ortiz Eddie Casiano Orlando Santiago Erick River Jerome Mincy James Carter Carlos Lanauze Ramón Rivas Rolando Hourruitiner Édgar de León Luis Allende Daniel Santiago	Brazil Raúl Filho André Guimarães Caio de Mello Carlos Rodrigues do Nascimento Aristides dos Santos Demétrius Ferraciú Alexei Carvalho Cláudio Gomes Sandro Varejão Vanderlei Mazzuchini Rogério Klafke Joélcio Joerke

External links[edit]

• [1]
• 1997 Championship of the Americas for Men, FIBA.com.