USA Men's Basketball Was Favored To Beat South Sudan By 43.5 Points. And Won By 1

Welp, I don’t think anyone was expecting that to happen.

The USA men’s basketball team faced off against South Sudan today in the O2 Arena in London. It was the squad’s second-to-last exhibition showing before the 2024 Summer Olympics. Naturally, you might think that this would be an easy dub for a team with bench unit (for today’s game) including the likes of Anthony Davis, Bam Adebayo, Jayson Tatum, Derrick White, and Anthony Edwards (holy mackerel, that’s a lot of talent).

Apparently, a lot of sports books thought this would be the case too. Fox Sports had the Americans listed as 43.5-point favorites heading into the break.

I personally would have bet that South Sudan would have covered the spread. Sure, a team that features Wenyen Gabriel, Marial Shayok, and Carlik Jones would probably get smoked by the USA’s third-strings, but it couldn’t be that bad a loss, right?

Well, South Sudan - which has only been a country for 13 years, by the way - not only covered the spread. South Sudan almost won the freakin’ game.

The U.S. got off to a fast start, but thanks to a furious pace, tenacious rebounding, and a disjointed offensive performance from the Americans, South Sudan built a 14 - that’s right, 14 - point lead heading into halftime.

Steph Curry was all of us after 20 minutes of play.

X was in full panic mode, with many people criticizing head coach Steve Kerr for putting out lineups that weren’t working well together.

But in the third quarter, all of that changed.

The U.S. scored 37 points in the third quarter to regain the lead thanks to contributions from pretty much everyone who stepped on the court. 

But South Sudan just…wouldn’t…go…away.

With 20 seconds left, JT Thor (that's a sick name) drained a corner three with LeBron James in his grill to give the Sudanese a 100-99 lead.

Fortunately for the U.S., James redeemed himself the next possession and drained what was probably his 10 millionth game-winning shot.

But there were still 8 seconds left on the clock, and Jones (who recorded South Sudan’s first triple-double) almost shocked the world.

After receiving an inbounds pass, he somehow got past Jrue Holiday (one of the best on-ball defenders in the NBA) and hoisted a floater. The ball bounced off the backboard, and was almost put back by Gabriel. But the U.S. deflected his attempt, and narrowly escaped with a 101-100 win.

After the game, James (who scored 23 points to go with six rebounds and six assists) told the team that a win is a win no matter what. Still, I’m sure there’s a lot of bettors who wish they had made the win less dramatic.

This game should give America two reasons for pause. The first is that the Americans showed they can be beat if they have one off night.

The second is that the U.S. has to play South Sudan in its second group game in just 11 days - when the games actually matter. If the Americans want to take home their fifth consecutive gold medal, they better wake up and get their act together.