It’s been more than a week and I’m still having the dreams. Theydon’t stop and I can’t sleep. Every night it is the same, over andover the dream runs through my head.

Twopoints, only two points. I couldn’t believe it when I first heard theresult. A two-point victory over Lithuania, that’s not right, Ithought.

A missed Sarunas Jasikevicius three-pointer is the only thing thatseparated the United States from playing in the bronze medal game. Iwish he would have made it.

Imagine Gary Payton, Vince Carter and the rest of the Nike-wearingballers bending over to have the bronze medal placed around theirnecks. The NBA and USA Basketball’s worst nightmare would have beenrealized.

For years collegians had to face rough and rugged pros from theU.S.S.R, Italy, France and every other cheese-loving, wine-swillingcountry you could imagine.

It finally caught up to Team USA in 1988 when we lost to theSoviets in the semi-finals. A bronze medal and a bruised ego led towhat we now know as the U.S. Men’s Olympic basketball team.

Americans were distraught, how dare we lose! How dare these teamsbring their pros! If only these pasty foreigners could feel ourwrath.

In 1992 USA basketball set out to fix all the wrongs incurred fouryears earlier. The finest basketball team ever to see the hard courtwas assembled. Why not? The idea was novel.

Let American pride swell as we whoop on these ‘pros’ was the idea.It was beautiful. Barcelona served as a measuring stick. The DreamTeam literally destroyed other nations averaging 117.3 points pergame, winning by nearly 44 points each time out.

It was fun watching Jordan soar, Magic pass and Barkley elbow somepoor little Angolan. After all, we are Americans, we did what wewanted.

So dammit, why only eight years later was I tossing and turningbecause we nearly lost to Lithuania?

Professional analysts offer many reasons, most of them garbage.They say the international game is different. They say our prosaren’t used to the help defense and trapezoid lane. They say the zoneemployed by these crafty foreigners was too much for our NBAsuperstars to grasp.

So what, Vince Carter can jump over a 7-foot French guy, all thatother stuff shouldn’t matter.

But it did, we only won by two points.

Here’s what we should do, send back the college kids. I know thatwinning is the only thing, but I’m past that. No one cares aboutpounding teams into submission anymore as evident by horribletelevision ratings.

College stars like Duke’s Shane Battier, Stanford’s Casey Jacobsenand the University of North Carolina’s Joe Forte would learn so muchit wouldn’t matter how they did. That’s the problem for USABasketball. What do they want?

Sure, winning is the ultimate goal and in the short term it makessense to keep sending NBA players. However, what more can really begained from sending spoiled millionaires to the Olympics?

Nothing.

People’s attention would continue to waver and eventually we’dlose. It’s inevitable. It’s time the nightmare ends for USAbasketball, myself and the country.

Josh is a communication junior and staff writer for The DailyAztec. He can be reached at yay_yee@hotmail.com.