44-Point Favorite Team USA Gets Cooked For Shockingly Close Call Vs. South Sudan In Olympics Basketball Showcase

Matt Fitzgerald·
CULTURESPORTS
·
Team USA
Fox Sports

To quote Vince Lombardi since we’re all dying for football to come back ASAP especially after this: What the hell’s going on out here!?

Team USA Basketball. Rife with NBA superstars. Everyone but LeBron James pretty much sleepwalking through Saturday’s Summer Olympics exhibition matchup — and understandably so, I guess. Just look at the pre-tip point spread.

It took a trademark LeBron drive to the rim with fewer than 10 seconds remaining to lift the Americans to victory.

LOL at that graphic.

Not to get too in the geopolitical or economical weeds, but this is South Sudan we’re talking about. Hats off to them first of all. What an extraordinary effort from a band of basketball heroes, very few of whom I had even a soft awareness of before today.

You know what else pops up when you plug in “South Sudan spread” to Twitter search? This!

Furthermore, if you look up “world’s poorest countries”, well, according to Global Finance magazine’s judgment of GDP-PPP per capita, South Sudan is indeed the very poorest country on the planet. Or least-developed, if you like.

Yet look at the halftime score.

…And look at how in-disbelief the sharpest sports betting minds were with the disrespect they hurtled at South Sudan via this live spread:

 

Joel Embiid was heavily blamed amid Team USA’s sluggish start. Unless my eyes on the box score deceive me, he finished with a plus-minus of +15, so I guess he got better as the contest wore on. Nevertheless, the reactions to his hilarious, awful behind-the-back pass and early struggles were fantastic — never mind the rest.

Marial Shayok poured in 25 points for South Sudan, who also had one of their guards hang a triple-double on the ‘States squad who employs elite perimeter defenders such as two-time NBA champ Jrue Holiday.

Anyway, not to belabor any points or make more obvious comments about how ridiculous it is that Team USA had this much of a letdown. Let’s hope they don’t disappoint to this degree in Paris when the games actually start to count for something. The Americans are still the prohibitive favorites to take home the gold medal. This South Sudan scare should only help them in the long run if they’re made of that gold mettle. I’m proud of that pun.

Time to hand it over to the people to describe what was unfolding during an otherwise rather sleepy sports day. And by that I mean The Open Championship got us in the U.S. up brighter and earlier than is reasonable on a Saturday. Those of us who tuned in for USA-South Sudan thought we might be having a shared hallucination. I speak for all of us. I don’t know what I’m saying anymore. Here are more reactions. God Bless America.

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