Team USA vs. South Sudan: FIBA Basketball Highlights

Just yesterday, Team USA played in their fourth of five Olympic tune-ups leading up to the 2024

Paris Olympics. And if you were disappointed in their second game versus Australia, where they

were up by 20 plus and only won by six, this game was about 10 times worse. Obviously

click on the video, you know how close this one was. Playing versus South Sudan, a country that

is the youngest country in the world, only being in existence for 13 years when they won

independence in 2011. South Sudan is currently ranked 33rd in the world by FIBA's world rankings

and they qualified by being the best African team to finish at last year's World Cup. They're

currently led by former NBA veteran Luel Deng as the president of their basketball federation

and what's crazy is there's no indoor basketball arena in their entire country. Matter of fact

a majority of their roster consists of refugees and descendants of refugees that have fled the

war-torn country over the last couple of decades. Before we get into the game, here's a couple

notable players from South Sudan. You have Carlique Jones, the 2022-2023 G League Player of the Year

He averaged 27-5 that year, but was then released by the Chicago Bulls, played in China professionally

last year. Wenyan Gabriel, who you may remember playing for the Lakers just two years ago. He

played in five games for the Grizzlies last season and spent time in the G League. Mariel Shayok

who plays in China now. He played at Iowa State. JT Thor, the 2021 Hornets second round pick. He

played 12 minutes per game last year. 17-year-old Kamon Malawach, who is going to Duke next year

The story goes he was a refugee living in Uganda when a motorcyclist stopped him due to his height

somehow got him connected to luel dang's basketball camp and the rest is history he's a top five

recruit in the incoming freshman class you'll see him teaming up with cooper flag at duke this year

and then finally you have thon maker who was the 10th pick for the milwaukee bucks back in 2016 he

is still trying to get approved by fiba to play he should have the decision by tomorrow morning

according to his twitter account all right now that we got that out of the way let's get into

this game to start it off team usa starts super strong getting up by as much as 12 to 2 including

this lebron breakaway dunk but south sudan would shoot it super well from three in this first half

here's two wendian gabriel threes and a shayok three and this three from former iowa hawkeye peter jock

put south sudan up 23 18. anthony edwards has this nice pickpocket here getting it back to just a

one point game but south sudan leads 26 24 after the first quarter and i think the best way to sum

up this first half for team usa is they were very lackluster on the defensive end and on offense

they're just missing honestly pretty easy shots but as you see throughout this game this is the

danger of modern basketball with three-point variance if you're not shooting it well and you

are not playing with intensity on defense any team can beat you especially if they are hot from three

when you are not. After this pull up from Carly Jones and another three from Omat

South Sudan is up by eight. Carly Jones was South Sudan's best player in this game

Check out this layup he has over Anthony Davis And then again on the other end Anthony Davis gets the ball stripped This was just Team USA attitude in the first half I don think they were ready for South Sudan to come out with as much intensity and urgency as they did really just taking them for granted they also

start off very poor from three Steph Curry misses this three making Team USA just one for ten from

three at this point in the game Steph misses another three and then Carly Jones gets this

and one putting south sudan up 15 points 43 to 28 and if i had to sum up team usa's half here's a

play from joel and bead i don't know what we're doing here here's another example of how good

carlick jones has been in this game south sudan up 13 and another mb turnover before this shayok

incredible bucket puts them up 15. and i'll be honest lebron james is about the only player

playing well for team usa right now he has eight points already here carlick jones takes it right

at lebron this dude is 6-1 and he has absolutely no fear going to the basket south sudan is up 14

points on team usa at halftime absolute credit to them i'm not even going to be negative about team

usa right now because i'm so impressed with south sudan steve kerr opts for starting the second unit

in the second half but instead he will put Derek White out there he didn't play in the first half

but he will replace Tyrese Halliburton with this unit there's a couple fun plays in this third

quarter Omat has this put back on top of AD and then AD has an incredible block soon afterwards

Anthony Edwards finally hits a 3 for Team USA it's just their second of the game meanwhile South

Sudan is making it rain from 3 Team USA cuts the lead to just 5 points they have not led

since 16 to 13 in the first quarter but then jason tatum turns the ball over and another mariel

shayok three from south sudan they're up 68 60 not just one but two mariel shayok threes south

sudan is back up 8 71 63 steph curry finally hits a three again just team usa's third of the game

76 68 at this point i heard an insane stat from the broadcast they said since that 12 to start for

Team USA. The Americans had not had a run of more than four points the entire game, which is utter

insanity if you think about it. Finally, there is some defensive intensity from none other than

Drew Holiday with this steal, throwing it ahead to LeBron for the bucket, and then Drew hits a

jumper. Devin Booker hits a three, putting USA on an 11-0 run and tying the game. Steph Curry then

hits this ridiculous three that was incredibly deep. At the end of the third quarter, USA is now

up 81 to 76 at the 16-0 run to end the third outscoring south sudan 37 to 18 but this south

sudan team has a ton of fight within them they are not going to quit matter of fact carlique jones

after this board needs just one point for a triple double with a ton of time left to go in the fourth

quarter winning gabriel banks in this three making it a one point game lebron pull up three and then

and then a lefty layup, extending the lead back to six for the Americans

Again, LeBron has been the best player for Team USA all day. At this point in the game, he has 21, six and six

Carly Jones officially gets his triple double on this layup. And then a Peter Jack pull up

makes it just a three point game again. Ant has a bad turnover And Carly Jones beats Anthony Edwards off the dribble and scores again just a one game We going to say his name a lot Carleek Jones again over Jason Tatum He just 6 remember

Still a three-point game, though. Team USA is having better possessions on offense, including

this BAM to Derek White to AD Bucket, 99-92. Shayok hits his sixth three of the game. Steph

misses a wide open three and then after two offensive rebounds with 49 seconds ago shayok

hits this jumper 99 to 97 keep in mind south sudan has only been in a couple major tournaments

on the world stage afro basket 2021 and the world cup last year this would easily be their best win

in country history and they get the stop on defense ad misses this alley oop and then charlotte

hornet JT Thor hits this corner three South Sudan is up 100 to 99 with 20 seconds to go LeBron James

again best player on America all game long does it once again drives to the rack lays it in off the

glass Team USA is up 101 to 100 with eight seconds to go and Omat was this close to blocking that

off the glass with those eight seconds left Carleek Jones beats Drew Holiday puts a floater up over

anthony davis he airballs it when you gabriel's right there though for the offensive board i don't

think he was expecting so i'm editing this video right now and i'm just seeing that derrick white

got a piece of that first attempt by wenian gabriel probably saved the game with that and

of course anthony edwards clutches up on his regather stripping it from him i want to mention

derrick white was great for team usa as well he only played in the second half when he started

He only took one shot, did not score a point, but he had five assists and he was very important

for that second unit ratcheting up the defensive intensity in that second half

And it's game over. Team USA survives 101 to 100. I am obviously a huge advocate for Team USA

I want them to prove they're one of the best Team USA teams of all time

But at the same time, how could you not root for South Sudan watching this game, knowing

their story, knowing what these kids' families have been through? It was just a phenomenal, phenomenal performance by them

We'll talk more about them in a second, but I'm going to rail on Team USA for a second tier

This is absolutely embarrassing. It's great for South Sudan, but if you're Team USA, this should never happen

Now, I have one caveat, and that is that in today's modern game, three-point variance is absolutely a thing

Like, let's look at the threes. South Sudan shot 42% from three, hitting 14 of them, while Team USA shot just 25%, hitting seven of them

and a lot of studies have been done on this showing that you can't really defend three

pointers better or worse or i should say there's not a ton of correlation between defending the

three-point line or not now there's teams that will limit getting three-pointers off but when

it comes to actual limiting three-pointers percentage wise there's not much studies there

and so with that there's going to be three-point variants however at the end of the day team usa

is so athletic they have so many good players they just weren't giving 100 on defense they

were taking south sudan for granted i think they were thinking throughout this game eventually

they were going to cool off but they just didn't and of course that can happen at any given night

in today modern nba but here what i going to say i am measuring team usa with a very strict standard for success for them And that is that by the end of these Olympics I want to be able to say this is one of the most talented USA teams of all time

Because I believe on paper they are. And so in the comments here, don't tell me I'm saying they're better than the Dream Team or the Redeem Team

I'm not necessarily saying that. I'm just saying it's rare we get everyone to play in the Olympics

And this Team USA is one of the most talented. I'm excited for Kevin Durant to get back

of course i think he's going to be really good for team usa but at the same time this is very

disappointing and it's one of those games where obviously if you lose it it's a whole talking

point but to be honest there isn't really much of a difference between losing by one point versus

south sudan and winning on a game winning basket when you're team usa you're measured by how well

you beat opponents especially when it's not one of the big four teams and so team usa has a lot to

figure out here it's going to quickly quickly become meme season for them if they don't figure

this out luckily it's just an exhibition but again i've had a clear stance on this from the beginning

the exhibition games are just as important in today's age for team usa because everyone's

watching they're televised and there's five of them so people are going to remember them that

being said south sudan is in team usa's group in the olympics so let's take a quick look at the box

scores for this game starting with south sudan mariel shayok had 24 points on 6 for 12 from 3

then you have wenyan gabriel who had 11 and 6 and carly jones their best player 15 11 and 11 a

triple double for him he also was an insane plus minus of 14 in a game they lost by one point that

tells you just how valuable he was it also tells you in the eight minutes he was off the court team

usa outscored sudan by 15 points it was quite literally the difference jt thor played well as

well he had 14 points and then on team usa side like i said lebron led the way 25 points seven

assists six rebounds on 10 for 14 from the field lebron was the best player on team usa it was not

close team usa does not win this game without lebron james they're lucky lebron james did what

did in this game anthony davis had 15 and 11 steph curry had 10 anthony edwards had 11 and joellen bead

had 14 for team usa the americans take on germany in their final exhibition tomorrow and then this

weekend the olympics start i'm super excited for it but at the same time as a team usa mega fan i'm

pretty disappointed in this effort again it's just an exhibition but it takes just one of these

performances in my opinion to kind of ruin what we're hoping for in a generational run in these

Olympics at the same time as just a pure lover of basketball it's fun to see games that are

competitive and this was a fun game to watch I really thought South Sudan had it at the end of

there Carleek Jones beat Drew Holiday he had that floater over AD and honestly eight or nine times

out of ten that offensive board on a floater like that gets put back in for a dunk but because it

was missed so badly i think it messed up winning gabriel that about does it for today's video guys

like i said i'm making a video on every single one of team usa's games and of course as the

olympics comes on we'll be making more videos around more of those games as well not a good

look from team usa we'll see if they bounce back can't wait for kevin durant to come back

and as always we'll see you on the hardwood