U.S. men's basketball team reminds itself that nothing is guaranteed

South Sudan is the 33rd ranked team in the FIBA ​​world rankings, by far the lowest of the 12 nations competing for men's basketball gold at the Paris Olympics that begin this week.

The United States is ranked No. 1.

South Sudan came close to beating the Americans.

The alarm bell that goes off every four years for the U.S. Olympic team appears to have sounded. 101-100 victory against South Sudan Saturday in London was a day when a lot went wrong for the Americans. Traffic to the arena was brutal and Anthony Davis said arriving late disrupted the players' routines. South Sudan shot three-pointers and outshot the United States 42-21 from three-point range and the United States struggled in many areas.

And it all reminds us that at the Olympics, there are no guarantees anymore. Not even for the reigning four-time gold medalists, a program that lost two exhibition games en route to Tokyo 2021, then lost to France in the opening round of these Games, before rallying to win gold in the end.

“There are great teams everywhere and nothing is guaranteed at this point for USA Basketball,” U.S. coach Steve Kerr said earlier this summer. “We know that, I know that personally. We won the gold medal in Tokyo, but we lost three games along the way. Our gold medal game against France came down to the last minute. So it’s a completely different competition than 1992.”

There was no doubt who would win gold in 1992: America's first Dream Team dominated every team in its path. Chuck Daly coached a team that included 11 future Basketball Hall of Famers; Kerr loves to tell the story that Daly never had to call a timeout all summer because no game was in jeopardy.

Kerr had to call a basket Saturday with 20 seconds left to get the ball to LeBron James and set up what became the game-winning, game-saving basket in a one-point victory over South Sudan, a nation that gained independence only 13 years ago, is about to make its Olympic debut and has no indoor facilities suitable for basketball training at the national team level.

A lot of these teams were practicing a month or more in advance, James said. We were together for maybe two weeks. So every game, every film session, every opportunity, we try to make the most of it.

The final warm-up game, the final pre-Olympic test, the final measuring stick for the United States, will be Monday in London, where the Americans will face Germany. The United States is a 15.5-point favorite, according to BetMGM Sportsbook, over the defending World Cup champions and the team that beat the Americans in the semifinals of this tournament a year ago in Manila. That didn’t matter Saturday, when the United States was a 43.5-point favorite against South Sudan.

But if all the warm-up games around the world this summer have been any indication, then this Olympic tournament could be wide open.

South Sudan lost to Argentina and barely beat Great Britain, two teams that hadn't even qualified for the Olympics, and then nearly eliminated the United States. The Americans beat Australia, who beat Serbia, who beat France, who drew 1-1 with Germany; the French victory came while the Germans were playing without brothers Franz and Moritz Wagner, and the French defeat came without Victor Wembanyama in the lineup.

“We have 12 great players,” U.S. guard Stephen Curry said. “Basketball is such an interesting game that if you don’t play the right way, if you don’t have the right energy and the right focus to defend, rebound and not turn the ball over, you can get beat. It doesn’t matter who you’re playing against. So this is a good reminder of that.”

Saturday was also a good reminder of this: No one seems intimidated by the United States. Not even 17-year-olds.

A few weeks after Cooper Flagg put on a show against the Olympic team at training camp in Las Vegas, another Duke freshman, South Sudanese Khaman Maluach, found himself facing off against his big man idols, Bam Adebayo, Joel Embiid and Davis, on Saturday.

Much like Flagg did in Vegas, Maluach more than held his own, scoring seven points in 13 minutes on 3-of-4 shooting.

“I couldn't imagine playing against them,” Maluach told Eurohoops after the game. “I was just like, 'Oh, I'm playing against these guys?'

An 18-0 second-half run, a surge that began in a third quarter in which the United States outscored South Sudan 37-18, was the difference for the Americans. James hit a layup to save his team at the end, and what was supposed to be a meaningless game turned out to be a big one.

“We can get beat if we don't play our style of basketball, and our style of basketball is to play defense,” Curry said. “They made some tough shots in the first half and they're a talented team with a lot of shooting, so if they're in shape, they're tough. But we didn't make them uncomfortable at all in the first half and they took advantage of it.”

But we also learned that we have this equipment. If we can find it, no matter who's on the field, we can overwhelm teams for 40 minutes. And it's a great reminder of both of those things. If we don't play our game, we can get beat. We're not invincible.

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