Nigeria stuns Team USA in Olympic exhibition

Nigeria pulled off one of the greatest upsets in international basketball history Saturday night by stunning Team USA in an Olympic exhibition game in Las Vegas 90-87.

It was Team USA’s first-ever loss to an African nation. Team USA defeated Nigeria 156-73 in August 2012 at the London Olympics.

Nigeria features six NBA players and is coached by former NBA head coach and current Golden State Warriors assistant Mike Brown.

“It was an exhibition and at the end of the day it doesn’t mean much in the standings,” said Brown. “But it’s a good win for us. I don’t think any African team has been able to beat USA Basketball.”

“In a way I’m kind of glad it happened,” Team USA coach Gregg Popovich said. “It means nothing if we don’t learn from it. It could be the most important thing in this tournament for us. To learn lessons from this.

“I don’t think anyone should act, nor will we act, like this is the end of the world,” Popovich said. “It’s about everyone else deserves a lot of credit, and we have to play our ass off to do this.”

The Nigerian side defeated a Team USA starting five of Damian Lillard, Bradley Beal, Jayson Tatum, Kevin Durant and Bam Adebayo.

“None of us have ever played with each other, we’re just trying to figure it out,” said Tatum, who had 15 points and seven rebounds. “We don’t have three to four weeks. This is good for us, we’ll learn a lot from the film and we’ll regroup.”

Gabe Vincent, who averaged 4.8 points in 13.1 minutes per game for the Miami Heat this past season, led all scorers with 21 points and made six three-pointers for Nigeria.

Durant scored 17 points and Tatum had 15 for Team USA.

The other NBA players playing for Nigeria include Precious Achiuwa and KZ Okpala of the Miami Heat, Chimezie Metu (Sacramento), Josh Okogie (Minnesota) and Miye Oni (Utah).

Team USA plays its second exhibition game Monday vs Australia. (Reuters)