Team USA vs. South Sudan: What to know as Americans look to avoid upset, clinch Olympics quarterfinal berth

The United States men’s basketball team will take on South Sudan in each team’s second group-stage game on Wednesday. Tip time is set for 3 p.m. ET. Both teams won their opener (USA defeated Serbia while South Sudan handled Puerto Rico) and Wednesday’s winner will earn their spot in the quarterfinals. 

A quick reminder of how the Olympic format works: 12 teams are divided into three groups of four. Each group plays a round-robin schedule against the other three teams in its group. Two points are awarded for a win and one point for a loss. Tiebreakers within the group are decided head-to-head. 

Based on total points, the top two teams from each group, plus the top two third-place teams, advance to the quarterfinals, at which point it becomes a single-elimination knockout tournament. In the case of a tie between teams from opposing groups for the two wild card spots, it’s broken by the total score differential. Got it? Good.

Now here’s what to know about Team USA vs. South Sudan.

Americans will have ‘appropriate fear’

They better, because in an exhibition game less than two weeks ago the United States trailed South Sudan by 16 points and needed a bucket from LeBron James with under 10 seconds remaining to escape with a 101-100 victory. 

“We have appropriate fear,” Steph Curry said via ESPN of the threat South Sudan poses. “We know we can’t just sleepwalk through any game and feel like you’re going to win.”

“They came within one shot of beating us,” Steve Kerr said of South Sudan. “I’m really glad that we played them so we can feel their speed and their 3-point shooting ability and feel how good they are.”

Despite the close exhibition result, oddsmakers expect a blowout in the Olympics, with the U.S. favored by nearly 30 points. Then again, the Americans were favored by 40 points in the exhibition game. 

Get to know South Sudan

This is the first Olympic appearance for South Sudan, which doesn’t have any current NBA players on its roster. But it does have three players (Wenyen Gabriel, JT Thor, Marial Shayok and Carlik Jones) with NBA experience. A fourth player, Khaman Maluach, is a 7-foot-2 incoming freshman at Duke who is projected as a lottery pick for the 2025 draft class. Maluach is not a big part of this team as he played just six minutes against Puerto Rico. 

South Sudan is nothing like USA’s first Olympics opponent, Serbia, which plays a bigger, slower game around three-time MVP center Nikola Jokic. The South Sudanese put five 3-point shooters on the floor pretty much at all times and play a fast-paced drive-and-kick game. 

“They’re a very high-octane offense, spread the floor, shoot a lot of 3s and have athleticism,” Curry said of the South Sudanese. “So you just got to be mindful of how to guard them. It’s totally different than Serbia.”

Jones, who was named 2022-23 G League Player of the Year while playing for the Chicago Bulls’ affiliate, posted a triple-double against the Americans in the exhibition game before carding 19 points, six assists and seven rebounds in the opening win over Puerto Rico. 

Shayok, who had a cup of coffee with the Philadelphia 76ers in 2020, put 24 points and six 3-pointers on the Americans in the exhibition matchup. Gabriel hit another three 3-pointers. 

Three American questions

• Will Kevin Durant stay with the reserves? It seems likely. Durant was incredible off the bench with 23 points on 8-of-9 shooting against Serbia, and perhaps equally important, the starting lineup of LeBron James, Jrue Holiday, Stephen Curry, Devin Booker and Joel Embiid played well together. It’s unlikely that Kerr will mess with that lineup. 

• Will Jayson Tatum play? Almost certainly, yes. Kerr said he “felt like an idiot” for not playing Tatum a single second in the opener, although his explanation for the decision — that it was all about “matchups” — was just cover for the harsh truth that, all things being equal, he prefers Booker with the starters and Anthony Edwards with the bench units over Tatum. That said, South Sudan, as we’ve covered, plays smaller and faster, and that could lead to more perimeter-based bench lineups that include Tatum on Wednesday. 

• Can Stephen Curry get going? Curry, a first-time Olympian who admitted he had “a lot of nerves” going into the Serbia game, is just 12 for 31, including 7 for 23 from 3, over the Americans’ last three games (two of which were exhibitions, of course). He only had six points on a pair of 3-pointers against Serbia when the game was actually in question. He was 2 of 6 from 3 until he hit a meaningless one with seven seconds left. Will the breakout come against South Sudan?