When Joaquim "Kikas" Gomes made his Olympic debut in 2004, becoming the first product of Valparaiso University men's basketball coach Homer Drew's program to do so, his former coach was there.

Drew made the trip to Athens, Greece, four summers ago to see Gomes play for Angola. On Tuesday, Drew was planning to watch from the comfort of his home as Gomes, making his second Olympic appearance, and Angola took on Team USA in Pool B play at Beijing.

"We really wanted to go," Drew said. "... The timing was just not real good."

Angola would have liked to blame Tuesday's 97-76 loss to Team USA on bad timing. But frankly, the Americans are in a class of their own. Gomes, who has yet to experience an Olympic win, pulled down a game-high eight rebounds but was limited to four points on 1-of-5 shooting in the defeat.

That shooting performance did nothing to diminish what Gomes, 27, has done for his native team. When Angola won gold at the 2007 FIBI Africa Championships to qualify for Beijing, the 6-foot-7 Gomes was named MVP after averaging 15.2 points and 8.3 rebounds.

"He is the best player on the Angola team, from what I understand," Drew said, "so we're really excited about him doing so well."

It seems Gomes has only gotten better since graduating VU in 2004 with 1,055 career points and ranked third on the Crusaders' career blocked shots list and sixth in career rebounds.

With a career-high 23 points in VU's 75-70 win over IUPUI in the 2005 Mid-Continent Conference championship game, Gomes helped lead the Crusaders to their most recent NCAA tournament appearance.

"I'm really proud of him," Drew said, "He's just gotten better and better. That's the neat thing about Kikas."