Marbury leads U.S. into men's basketball semifinals

ATHENS, Greece -- Written off after their opener and branded failures back home, Stephon Marbury and the Americans are showing signs that they just might be the team to beat after all.

For a change, the face of frustration belonged to someone other than an American after Marbury's performance. He set a U.S. men's Olympic record with 31 points and broke the team mark with six 3-pointers, leading the suddenly accurate Americans into the semifinals with a 102-94 victory over Spain on Thursday.

In a game that ended with the opposing coaches swearing and pointing at one another, the United States finally started hitting jump shots -- just as Larry Brown predicted.

"They were very good on 3s. That was something new in this tournament," Spain's Pau Gasol said. "They looked motivated, and it'll be hard to beat them if they keep playing like that."

After spending 90 minutes practicing jumpers in an empty gym on a day off, Marbury made half of his team's 12 3-pointers and was a big reason why the previously undefeated Spaniards are now out of medal contention.

As the teams left the court, Spanish coach Mario Pesquera and Brown had to be separated by their assistants in an argument over a timeout Brown took with 23 seconds left and his team up by 11 points.

"I had -- and I stress the word 'had' -- a lot of respect for Larry Brown," said Pesquera, who smirked and shook his head when he heard Brown explain that he tried to rescind the timeout. "Dean Smith would have never done anything like that."

Marbury scored just 21 points in his team's first five games, missing 24 of 30 shots. The Americans lost two of them, to Puerto Rico and Lithuania.

But those struggles are in the past, and the Americans now have a chance to win the gold medal. Next up is a semifinal Friday against Argentina, a 69-64 winner against Greece. The other semifinal pitted Lithuania, which defeated China 95-75, against Italy.

Marbury's six 3s broke the record of five set by Reggie Miller against China in 1996, and his scoring total passed the mark of 30 points shared by Charles Barkley (1992 vs. Brazil) and Adrian Dantley (1976 vs. Yugoslavia). The Olympic record is 55 points by Oscar Schmidt of Brazil against Spain in 1988. The record for any U.S. player is 35 by Lisa Leslie against Japan in 1996.

Allen Iverson added 16 points, making three 3-pointers, and the Americans finally resembled U.S. teams from the past three Olympics. They didn't get rattled by a large disparity in fouls (27-18), they knocked down their free throws to maintain the lead in the final two minutes, and they topped 100 points for the first time in the tournament.

The Americans finished 12-for-22 on 3-pointers after shooting a tournament-low 24 percent in their first five games.