South Sudan celebrated a historic victory in its Olympic basketball tournament debut, defeating Puerto Rico 90-79 (20-28, 28-26, 23-15, 19-10).
The game went down to the wire, as South Sudan had only a two-point lead with eight minutes left in the 4th quarter (73-71).
However, Bul Kuol made a layup, Marial Shayok added his jumper and sank 2 free throws while South Sudan went on a 10-2 run and built a double-digit lead with 3:49 remaining (83-73).
Puerto Rico couldn’t erase such a deficit and the debutant celebrated its first win in the Summer Olympics.
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The game also started with an incident, as the Olympic organizers played the wrong anthem for South Sudan. Instead of playing South Sudan’s anthem, Sudan’s anthem was played.
The South Sudanese had shown glimpses of what to expect from them when they almost defeated the US men’s basketball team in a pre-Olympic friendly in London.
The US team fought back from a double-digit deficit to edge past them 101-100.
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