As you may know, Craig Brackins and Lucca Staiger are competing in the World University Games for USA and Germany respectively. Since competition started on July 2nd, you are probably wondering how they are doing?

Let's start with team USA and Brackins. Currently the USA is 2-0 having defeated Finland and South Korea. In the first game, the USA won 87-40. Brackins came off the bench, scoring 12 points (tied for team high), collecting 9 rebounds, on 5-7 shooting from the floor in 19 minutes.

The second game was 113-76. Brackins started, getting 9 points and 6 rebounds on 4-5 shooting from the floor in 23 minutes. It was nice to see Brackins getting rewarded for his good play in the previous game. He started off slow in the exhibition tournament against Serbia and Russia, but he seems to be playing better.

Lucca has been playing well also. Germany played their first game against Latvia. Lucca dropped 22 points going 8-16 from the floor and hitting 4 threes, although Germany lost 76-80. In the second game, Lucca had 13 points, 5 rebounds, and 4 assists going 5-11 from the floor and hitting 3 threes, in Germany's victory over South Africa 86-42.

USA has now advanced to the next round, where they will play Greece (1-1) at 1pm CST tomorrow. They will then play Serbia (2-0) on July 7th at 1pm CST as well.

I expect the USA to win the first game as Greece lost ot Serbia 81-50. Serbia is tough and beat us in the preliminary tournament but it was a respectible game.

The competition is now down to 16 teams, in 4 team groups.

The groups are:

Group I: USA, Greece, Serbia, Finland

Group J: Lithuania, Germany, Latvia, Romania

Group K: Canada, Russia, Italy, Israel

Group L: Bulgaria, Portugal, Ukraine, Turkey

I believe the top 2 teams in each group will advance to the round of 8. I am guessing USA, Serbia, Lithuania, Latvia, Russia, Israel, Turkey, and Bulgaria to advance. Sorry Lucca!