South Sudan is ranked 33rd in the FIBA ​​world rankings, by far the lowest of the 12 nations competing for gold in men’s basketball at the Olympic Games in Paris, which begin this week.

The US is number 1.

The wake-up call for the U.S. Olympic team that comes every four years appears to have landed. A 101-100 win over South Sudan on Saturday in London came on a day when a lot went wrong for the Americans — traffic to the arena was brutal and Anthony Davis said late arrivals messed up the players’ routines, South Sudan shot beautifully from 3-point range, outscoring the U.S. 42-21 from long range, and the U.S. struggled in many areas.

And it all serves as a reminder that there are no guarantees at the Olympics anymore. Not even for the reigning four-time gold medalists, a program that lost two exhibitions on the road to Tokyo in 2021 and then lost to France to open those Games before coming back to win gold at the end.

“There are great teams everywhere and nothing is certain for USA Basketball right now,” U.S. coach Steve Kerr said earlier this summer. “We know that well, I know it personally. We won the gold medal in Tokyo, but we lost three games along the way. Our gold medal game against France was close until the very end. So this is a very different competition than it was in 1992.”

There was no question who would win gold in 1992: The first American Dream Team swept every team in its path. Chuck Daly coached a roster that included 11 future members of the Basketball Hall of Fame; Kerr likes to tell the story that Daly didn’t have to take a timeout that entire summer because no game was ever in jeopardy.

Kerr needed to score with 20 seconds left on the clock Saturday to give the ball to LeBron James and score the decisive basket that prevented a one-point defeat to South Sudan. South Sudan gained independence only 13 years ago and is about to make its Olympic debut. However, the country lacks a suitable indoor facility for national team basketball training.

“A lot of the teams we play, we practice a month or months in advance,” James said. “We’re probably two weeks into it, together. So every game, every film session, every opportunity we have, we try to make the most of it.”

The final tune-up, the final pre-Olympic test, the final sort of measuring stick for the U.S., comes Monday in London, where the Americans face Germany. The U.S. is a 15.5-point favorite, according to BetMGM Sportsbook, ahead of the reigning world champions and the team the Americans defeated in last year’s semifinals of that tournament in Manila. That wasn’t relevant Saturday, when the U.S. was a 43.5-point favorite against South Sudan.

But if we take all the warm-up matches around the world this summer as an example, this entire Olympic tournament could be wide open.

South Sudan lost to Argentina and narrowly beat Great Britain, two teams that didn’t even qualify for the Olympics. Then they nearly beat the U.S. The Americans beat Australia, who beat Serbia, who beat France, who lost 1-1 to Germany. The French beat Germany without brothers Franz and Moritz Wagner, and the French lost to Germany without Victor Wembanyama.

“We have 12 great guys,” U.S. guard Stephen Curry said. “Basketball is such an interesting game that if you don’t play the right way, if you don’t come with the right energy and the right focus to defend, rebound, and not give the ball away, you can get beat. It doesn’t matter who you play against. So, it’s a good reminder of that.”

On Saturday this became clear to us again: no one seems to be intimidated by the US, not even 17-year-olds.

A few weeks after Cooper Flagg performed against the Olympic team during a training camp in Las Vegas, another Duke freshman, Khaman Maluach of South Sudan, faced off against his idols: Bam Adebayo, Joel Embiid and Davis on Saturday.

Like Flagg in Vegas, Maluach held his own, scoring seven points in 13 minutes on 3 of 4 shooting.

“I couldn’t imagine playing against them,” Maluach told Eurohoops after the game. “I just thought, ‘Oh, I’m playing against these guys?'”

An 18-0 second-half run, an outburst that began in a third quarter in which the U.S. outscored South Sudan 37-18, was the difference for the Americans. James made a layup to save his team at the end, and what should have been a meaningless game seemed to have a lot of meaning after all.

“We can get beat if we don’t play our brand of basketball and our brand of basketball is defense,” Curry said. “They made some tough shots in the first half and they’re a skilled team with a lot of shots, so when they get hot, they’re tough. But we didn’t make them uncomfortable at all in the first half and they took advantage of that.

“But we also learned that we have that equipment. If we can find it, regardless of who’s on the field, we can overwhelm teams for 40 minutes. And it’s a great reminder of both. If we don’t play our game, we can get beat. We’re not invincible.”