BEIJING — I left the U.S. for this tour to embrace that uncomfortable feeling of being so far away from home. I've been covering Duke basketball for so long, I needed something different.

So why did the Cameron Crazies follow me here?

Not all of them, just the random three or four who attended the U.S. quarterfinal game against Australia at the Beijing Olympic Basketball Gymnasium. At the end of the third quarter, with the U.S. up by a lot, they broke out with the one Crazie cheer that WILL NOT DIE.

It's goes like this: Two-syllable name, two-syllable name, clap, clap, clap clap clap. As in "Car-los Boo-zer, clap, clap, clap clap clap." Why that chant bugs me has nothing to do with Boozer. After hearing so many permutations, turning one syllable names into two and three back into two, over the years, it makes me twitch.

It's like Pavlov's dog. They started chanting. I started twitching.

BEIJING — The bigs on the U.S. men's basketball team were trying their best to downplay the big man matchup expected in Sunday's U.S.-China game at Wukesong Indoor Stadium at 10:15 a.m. ET. You'll hear it in the audio below from the U.S. practice at Beijing Normal University on Saturday.

It's hard not to point at Yao, who U.S. center Dwight Howard faced in the NBA All-Star game or who U.S. power forward Carlos Boozer faced four times this past season.

For China to have a shot, the Houston Rocket has to win the fight inside. Tempting Howard, Boozer or Chris Bosh into foul trouble would help, too. The U.S. features just three true big men on its roster.

DURHAM — Duke and U.S. national coach Mike Krzyzewski said, besides Kobe Bryant and Carlos Boozer, who played at Duke, he never recruited any of the current superstars on the U.S. team that will compete in Beijing.

Guys like LeBron James, Dwight Howard, and Carmelo Anthony weren't going to stay around college at all or long enough to make it worth Duke's trouble.

Krzyzewski said Wednesday that one look at Howard convinced him to leave it alone. James was an NBA target before the end of his junior year in high school. Bryant actually tried to visit but never did.