Olympic basketball: Do the USA men even try before it counts?

Each Olympics the team USA goes into these competitions with a bit of well-deserved arrogance. A few times that arrogance has resulted in them not winning which would be normal for most nations but the USA kind of expects to win gold in this competition every year as they have done for the past 16 years. This time around, they hope to put a 5th consecutive gold medal into the record books but they perhaps enjoy scaring us a bit during the warmup exhibition rounds when they don't look as dominant as the world expects them to be.

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Every Olympics they try to paint team USA as the best team ever put on a court but this time around they aren't really going to that level although it is kind of understood that they are the team to beat and that anyone else is going to be easy in comparison.

Perhaps the team enjoys giving us a bit of a minor heart attack in these exhibition games that lead up to the actual games that consist of group stages and then later, knock-out stages but one game in particular kind of made those of us watching that actually care, feel as though perhaps team USA isn't as dominant as they claim to be.

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It happened just a little over a week ago when the USA side faced the world's youngest country South Sudan and even if you know very little about the sport or the players involved, I think everyone would agree that this would just be a blowout of epic proportions... only, it wasn't.

In the exhibition game, which I will admit doesn't mean nothin'! as far as advancement and placement is concerned, things looked dicey right from the start when Sudan was WINNING after the 1st and 2nd quarters making all of us fans gasp a bit when at halftime it was 58-44 with the Americans losing. I get that this is a time when the teams aren't really giving it their all and injuries are trying to be avoided but still, this was a crazy deficit to be losing by against at team that I and most people didn't even know had a team. Team USA outscored in the 3rd quarter but other than that it was never a dominant performance the likes of which people watching expected when team USA pulled out a 101-100 win in the end.

Things looked bad and I was wondering if the rest of the world had been getting better at this team sport while USA was just sitting on their hands with heads full of arrogance.

I think Team USA kind of realized that their fans back home and around the world were expecting them to choke but then put on one of the most awesome 1st quarter "retribution performances" the games have ever seen when they exploded to a 30-9 lead in the 1st quarter and never really looked back from there.

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Team USA wasn't just scoring nearly every time they had the ball but doing so in glorious, showboating fashion. The only thing that didn't look absolutely perfect was Steph Curry missing his first SEVEN shots. I suppose it doesn't matter as much when you miss a shot when you have the world's best rebounders pulling it back for you because on 5 of these the USA ended up scoring anyway.

By the time the 4th quarter rolled around the Stars and Bars really let off the gas because absolutely obliterating your opponents is frowned upon in the Olympics and they won the game with a final score of 103-86. I truly believe that if team USA had been going all out for the full game that this could have easily been a 130-65 sort of final score. In the interest of sportsmanship though, I am happy that they did not do this.

Looking at the rest of the games they have been relatively close with the exceptions of perhaps Japan and Brazil, who look truly out of their element on the court. Bless them for trying, I guess. Barring any sort of miracle on wood paneling, I think we can safely say that it is likely to be Spain, Germany, France, and of course, USA that make their way towards the end. Never count out Greece though, as they have shocked Team USA in the past, albeit not at an Olympics.

but after watching these games I can't help but wonder if it isn't actually part of Team USA's strategy to not actually give it their all during the preliminary games so that the fans can at least have hope for the other teams involved.

Upsets do happen in basketball though, so don't be surprised if once this goes to the knockout stages that someone actually gives USA a run for the money or perhaps even beats them. That will be absolutely huge news if that happens because the way that the bookies are treating this right now, betting on ANY team other than Team USA for the win will pay out HUGE if that were to happen.