Team USA has witnessed a back-to-back defeat at the ongoing FIBA World Cup in China, as they fell 94-89 to Serbia in a thrilling consolation game, after both teams lost their quarterfinal games against Argentina and France respectively.
The Thursday defeat in the hands of Serbia comes a day after Team USA lost their quarterfinal game to France, thereby ending their unbeaten record since 2006. It also means the US team will now finish 7th, instead of 5th if they had beaten Serbia.
The team USA outing at the ongoing FIBA world cup will now go down in the history books as their worst outing in any major tournament, surpassing that of the 2002 World Championships in which Team USA came in sixth. The other one is the embarrassment they suffered at the Athens 2004 Summer Olympics where they won Bronze.
The US team was already blown away right from the first quarter with Serbia holding on to 32-7 lead. Team USA pushed back, cutting the lead to 44-40 at halftime, but they never managed to tie the game. Despite 22 points from Harrison Barnes and 18 from Kemba Walker, Serbia managed to keep its lead in the high single-digits for most of the second half and hold off the furious American comeback attempt.
From the result it is clear, nobody likes playing these consolation games and the team lacked that motivation after that shocking defeat to France. But if anything, other teams are clearly catching up fast on the Americans, even though some might want to attribute the failure of the team USA to some players pulling out from the tournament.