Team USA Prepares for Another Battle vs. South Sudan
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00:00All right, let's get to the second day of action in Group C in men's Olympic basketball.
00:09Of course, it was the fourth of five games in the exhibition match that caught everybody
00:14by surprise.
00:15It would have been one of the biggest stunners in international basketball in history.
00:20South Sudan and the United States.
00:22In London, the U.S. prevails 101-100, thanks to LeBron James.
00:27And South Sudan had many opportunities, Carlin, in the final ten seconds to win that game
00:32outright, booked as a 40-point underdog, plus against the Americans.
00:37Now this game is for real.
00:40The United States, a 28-and-a-half-point favorite against South Sudan, who won its Olympic opener
00:45by 11 points, 90-79 on Sunday afternoon against Puerto Rico.
00:51So a 28-and-a-half-point spread.
00:53That has obviously varied a ton from what the line was for the exhibition match just
00:58a few days ago, Carlin, 31-and-a-half-point spread in favor of Team USA.
01:04Everybody remembering the Olympic exhibition match.
01:07How competitive do you expect today's game to be in Paris?
01:12Yeah, the South Sudan game for South Sudan was a little bit of a gift and a curse, right?
01:17They got a chance to go toe-to-toe with Team USA.
01:20They had a chance to win that game really late, as you mentioned.
01:23And they got that confidence coming into the Olympic Games and saying, like, we could compete
01:27with the best team on the planet.
01:29The downside of that is now the best team on the planet knows that you could compete.
01:32So they're not going to walk into this game, you know, kind of giving you an opportunity
01:36to get off on the right foot.
01:38So that 29-point spread is very interesting, especially in FIBA basketball, because point
01:44difference matters, right?
01:46It's not enough to just go 3-0 in the group, which Team USA should.
01:50The point difference is going to be the determining factor of whether or not you played the eighth
01:54seed or the seventh seed, or however it shakes out in the quarterfinals.
01:58And with Canada off to a good start, France off to a good start, you've got to not only
02:02win games, you've got to win them impressively.
02:03You've got to run the score up.
02:05So I expect Team USA to get close to that 29-point mark.
02:08Honestly, I would not touch that, but I would touch the total under, because I don't think
02:12that South Sudan is going to hit enough threes.
02:14They hit a ton of threes in that pre-seed, in that pre-tournament game.
02:17Mariel Shayok could not miss.
02:19So I expect that to come back down to earth, and I expect Team USA to lock in defensively.
02:24So that under is what I'm looking at.
02:26The spread, I'm a little iffy on it, but if you put me back against the wall, I'm going
02:31to say that they're going to cover that, but I'm not as certain as I am with the under.