Behind 17 points from Deon Thompson (North Carolina / Torrance, Calif.), the 2009 USA Men’s World University Games Team (3-0) overran Greece (1-2) in the second half and came away with a 108-77 victory in second round action on Monday night in Belgrade, Serbia. With the win, the U.S. is assured a spot in the medal quarterfinals as it can’t finish lower than second in Group I play.

All 12 players scored no less than five points each.

The U.S. faces Serbia (3-0) on July 7 (2:00 p.m. EDT) to close out second round play, and the winner of that contest will advance as the Group I’s No. 1 seed. Group I crosses over in quarterfinal play with Group L, and the U.S. will play either Bulgaria (3-0) or Latvia (3-0), depending on who wins the USA versus Serbia contest and Bulgaria versus Latvia game tomorrow night. The No. 1 seed in Group I will play the No. 2 seed out of Group L, and vice versa.

“They gave us their best in the first half,” said USA and University of Wisconsin head coach Bo Ryan. “In the second half, once we made our push, we got them out of any rhythm they could establish. The rest of the game we were pretty much in control, but in the first 20 minutes, they did the things that make them so good. If we didn’t shut that off, we were going to be in trouble. But our guys did what we needed to do, we responded better. We got them in foul trouble in certain positions, and that helped us quite a bit. We got on the glass, and didn’t turn the ball over, so we were getting shots every time down. All the fundamental things that you need to do to beat a team, we did, especially in the last 20 minutes.”

Medal quarterfinals will be played on July 9, semifinals are scheduled for July 10 and the gold medal will be contested on July 11.

Ryan is being assisted by collegiate head coaches Frank Haith of the University of Miami and Rob Jeter of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.