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Rio de Janeiro
The five biggest subjects of my curiosity about the 2016 Olympics, not necessarily in order …
• Can anyone touch USA Basketball?
Between the Utah Jazz and the University of Utah, 10 players with ties to the state will compete in the men's and women's basketball tournaments — and none of them will represent the United States. So much for their gold medal potential.
Just about all of them will have a shot at the USA in preliminary play, though, and who knows? Maybe one of those international teams will stage a made-in-Utah upset, as former Jazz guard Carlos Arroyo did with Puerto Rico in 2004.
Judging by pre-Olympics exhibitions, the best hope is the Australian women's team, with ex-Ute guard Leilani Mitchell. She scored all of her 18 points in the first 21 minutes of Sunday's 104-89 loss to the Americans at Madison Square Garden.
The Aug. 12 women's game will feature Canada with three former Utes (Kim Smith Gaucher, Shona Thorburn and Michelle Plouffe) vs. the USA with five UConn players. The Americans won 83-43 in a recent exhibition.
• Midnight volleyball, really?
The schedule for beach volleyball makes those late-night kickoffs in college football seem early. The all-day competition runs into the early morning hours, with the U.S. women's team of Kerri Walsh Jennings and April Ross playing their first two matches at midnight Brazil time.
Beach volleyball matches last only about 40 minutes, and the four-hour time difference from the West Coast allows for reasonable body-clock adjustments. But there's something weird about competing at that hour.
• What will Olympic golf look like?
In between the PGA Championship and the FedEx Cup Playoffs (followed by the Ryder Cup), Olympic golf will be staged for the first time since 1904. With no team component, the 60-player men's and women's tournaments shape up like just about any event on the PGA or LPGA Tours, only with fewer contestants.
So will these events look or feel any different than usual? Actually, Tyler Dennis hopes not. The graduate of Rowland Hall-St. Mark's is the PGA Tour's liaison to the International Golf Federation. Dennis is charged with conducting the Olympic competition at tour standards.
The best thing that could happen is having a lesser-known golfer from a country where the game is developing win a medal. But that seems unlikely.
• Who will emerge as Utah's star?
Olympic team alternates are not awarded medals unless they're activated to compete, so incoming Ute gymnast MyKayla Skinner probably won't receive a gold medal that her U.S. teammates are expected to earn. Sports Illustrated predicts Mitchell will be the only athlete with Utah ties who gets a medal — a bronze.
Yet the potential exists for nearly any of them to become the biggest local story in Rio, even if Utah's nice run of gold medalists will end. Maka Unufe, a former Provo High football player, could surface as a key player for the U.S. rugby sevens teams, although he's largely overlooked in the pre-Games buildup, due to New England Patriots safety Nate Ebner. The Jazz's Rudy Gobert (France) or Joe Ingles (Australia) may have a big impact.
Brushes with greatness may have to do, though. Depending on the draws for preliminary heats, Brighton graduate Long Gutierrez of Mexico could swim against Michael Phelps in the butterfly and BYU sprinter Tatenda Tsumba of Zimbabwe could run against Usain Bolt in the 200 meters.
And former Ute skier Chirine Njeim of Lebanon, running in the women's marathon, will become a rare dual Olympian by competing in the Summer Games after skiing in three Winter Games.
• Will this thing actually work?
Ask me Aug. 21, when I'm walking out of the basketball arena. Nobody's convinced that everything will come together in these Games, even though it usually does. The best of any of us can hope to do is make fun of the situations that arise, as ex-Ute basketball player Andrew Bogut is doing. His response to the Australians' issues in the Olympic Village is Twitter commentary marked "#IOCLuxuryLodging."
Twitter: @tribkurt