PARIS, France (AFP) — Olympic organizers might have played the wrong national anthem before South Sudan’s opening basketball game at the Paris Games, but the star-studded US team knows for certain what they are up against next.
America’s men have never lost to an African side at the Olympics but they had a scare when they played South Sudan in a warm-up game in London on 20 July.
US-born JT Thor, who plays for the Charlotte Hornets in the National Basketball Association (NBA), hit a three-pointer with 20 seconds left to put South Sudan ahead, only for LeBron James to snatch a 101-100 win.
Wenyen Gabriel, a center who was born in Sudan’s capital Khartoum and played eight seasons in the NBA — including a stint as a teammate of James with the Los Angeles Lakers — said South Sudan could take positives from their defeat.
“A lot of people doubted us, and going toe-to-toe with the US, it brought our team together, it brought our country together,” he said.
South Sudan won their first-ever Olympic basketball match 90-79 against Puerto Rico on Sunday while four-time defending champions the United States crushed Serbia, 110-84.
New York-born coach Royal Ivey warned they would be facing a different United States on Wednesday.
“That was a friendly,” Ivey said, referring to the London contest.
“They’re gonna be ready for us.”
“This is a movie,” he added. “This is so surreal. I couldn’t experience anything better than this.”
Ivey played 11 seasons in the NBA and was a teammate of American forward Kevin Durant at Oklahoma City.
“That’s definitely my little brother. I’ve known Kevin since he was 18 years old,” Ivey said.
After the Bright Stars beat Angola to qualify for Paris, Luol Deng, the former NBA star who is president of South Sudan’s basketball federation, told American broadcaster NBC that if there was an indoor court in the country he was not aware of it.