The current iteration of the United States’ Men’s National Basketball Team may not be an official Dream Team, but don’t tell that to Nigeria. While the US Men have had some close calls and played some tough games during their exhibition season and the first few games of the 2012 London Olympics, Nigeria was not one of those. The US destroyed Nigeria 156-73, shattering several US and Olympic records in the process.
The first record broken was the Olympic scoring record. The old record was 138 points, which Brazil scored in a win over Egypt in 1988. The team also scored a record amount of points in a half, with 78. Along with the team records, Team USA also broke several US Olympic scoring records. For example, New York Knick Carmelo Anthony‘s 37 points was a US Olympic record. He scored his 37 in only 14 minutes, thanks to hitting a US Olympic record 10 three-pointers (going 10-12 from behind the arc). As a whole, Team USA hit 62 percent of its three point shots, and obviously they never cooled off. However, don’t accuse Mike Krzyzewski of running up the score.
“The first thing we did was not play LeBron and Kobe in the second half,” Krzyzewski said sternly. “The second thing we did is, even with Carmelo shooting like that, we benched him. I take offense to [the reporter’s] question because there’s no way in the world our program, the United States, is out to humiliate anyone.”
Nigeria, for the record, didn’t feel humiliated; they were simply amazed by what happened, and who can blame them?
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