U.S. Men's Basketball Takes Gold

By ESPN

The trip wasn't always easy, though they arrived at their expected destination.

The players on the U.S. Olympic men's basketball team never doubted they would be standing on the gold-medal platform, even after some close calls in Rio and criticisms that they lacked the usual big names and bigger wins.

"I know there was kind of a lot of buzz around us not playing well a couple of games, two, three games in the early round," Carmelo Anthony said, "but the way that we locked in and the way that we focused in to be able to have this gold medal around our necks was special."

Saving their best for last in a tournament that had been tough, the Americans convincingly won their third straight gold medal, beating Serbia 96-66 on Sunday.

"We came here, and despite what people are saying about this group, being less talented and not blowing teams out, we did a good job of bottling all that up and unleashed it on Serbia," forward Paul George said.

Kevin Durant scored 30 points in the final game with the national team for coach Mike Krzyzewski, who took the Americans back to the top and leaves with them there after becoming the first coach to win three Olympic gold medals.

"To go home as gold medalists and leave Coach K off with another gold was one of our main goals as well," Durant said.

Anthony also picked up his third gold to go with a bronze, becoming the most decorated male in Olympic basketball history. He announced his retirement from international competition after the game.

Olympic Roundup

Simone Biles defied gravity. Simone Manuel defied history. Michael Phelps glared, still hungry. Katie Ledecky churned all alone. Meb Keflezighi did pushups. Allyson Felix anchored. Usain Bolt glanced at the heir apparent to his right and grinned.

A distance runner helped an injured opponent to her feet. A sprinter dove in desperation. A hurdler's toddler son capered happily on the track. A wrestler wept. Thirteen water polo players, one after the other, carefully looped their gold medals around a treasured coach's neck.

Neymar scored.

Yet amid the giddy 17-day narrative presented in high definition, two low-resolution videos stood out. One caught young athletes with a careless disregard of consequences. The other showed an older bureaucrat in a bathrobe who may have thought he was beyond any consequences.

Tone-deaf Ryan Lochte and three other U.S. swimmers are home, awaiting potential discipline. Patrick Hickey, the 71-year-old International Olympic Committee member from Ireland arrested at his Rio hotel and charged in a $3 million ticket-scalping scheme, is jailed until further notice.

Author and academic Jules Boykoff had dinner with Brazilian friends after Lochte's inflated tale of victimization finally unraveled and unleashed so much rightful resentment.

"It was the one thing that did unite all Brazilians across the board," said Boykoff, who lived in Rio for the latter part of 2015 while finishing a book about Olympic politics. "He treated the country as his own private spring break, south of the equator. It was a vicious satire of white male privilege.

"My friends told me, 'If you can understand our frustration with him, then you can understand how we feel about the IOC. They jet in, live a life of privilege and then jet out, never to be seen again.'"

There were different degrees of misconduct and broken promises playing out in Rio these past three weeks, ranging from petty to venal and beyond. Still ahead are the Paralympics, whose push for greater status and exposure has been inexcusably undermined by lack of funding.

The contrast between Olympic field of play and the world just outside the fences has never been so great, yet the Games carried on like an irresistible musical with a sketchy producer. Now that IOC president Thomas Bach has declared Rio's absence of disaster a success, we can expect unabated entitlement and overburdened host cities to continue indefinitely.

Total Medals By Country

Group    G    S    B    Total
USA    46    37    38    121
CHN    26    18    26    70
GBR    27    23    17    67
RUS    19    18    19    56
GER    17    10    15    42
FRA    10    18    14    42
JPN    12    8    21    41
AUS    8    11    10    29
ITA    8    12    8    28
CAN    4    3    15    22
KOR    9    3    9    21
NED    8    7    4    19
BRA    7    6    6    19
NZL    4    9    5    18
AZE    1    7    10    18
ESP    7    4    6    17
KAZ    3    5    9    17
HUN    8    3    4    15
DEN    2    6    7    15
KEN    6    6    1    13
UZB    4    2    7    13
JAM    6    3    2    11
CUB    5    2    4    11
SWE    2    6    3    11
UKR    2    5    4    11
POL    2    3    6    11
CRO    5    3    2    10
RSA    2    6    2    10
CZE    1    2    7    10
BLR    1    4    4    9
COL    3    2    3    8
IRI    3    1    4    8
SRB    2    4    2    8
TUR    1    3    4    8
ETH    1    2    5    8
SUI    3    2    2    7
PRK    2    3    2    7
GEO    2    1    4    7
GRE    3    1    2    6
BEL    2    2    2    6
THA    2    2    2    6
ROU    1    1    3    5
MAS    0    4    1    5
MEX    0    3    2    5
ARG    3    1    0    4
SVK    2    2    0    4
ARM    1    3    0    4
SLO    1    2    1    4
LTU    0    1    3    4
NOR    0    0    4    4
INA    1    2    0    3
TPE    1    0    2    3
VEN    0    1    2    3
BUL    0    1    2    3
EGY    0    0    3    3
TUN    0    0    3    3
BRN    1    1    0    2
VIE    1    1    0    2
IOC    1    0    1    2
BAH    1    0    1    2
CIV    1    0    1    2
IRL    0    2    0    2
ALG    0    2    0    2
IND    0    1    1    2
MGL    0    1    1    2
ISR    0    0    2    2
PUR    1    0    0    1
TJK    1    0    0    1
SIN    1    0    0    1
FIJ    1    0    0    1
KOS    1    0    0    1
JOR    1    0    0    1
BDI    0    1    0    1
NIG    0    1    0    1
PHI    0    1    0    1
QAT    0    1    0    1
GRN    0    1    0    1
TRI    0    0    1    1
NGR    0    0    1    1
POR    0    0    1    1
DOM    0    0    1    1
MDA    0    0    1    1
AUT    0    0    1    1
EST    0    0    1    1
FIN    0    0    1    1
UAE    0    0    1    1
MAR    0    0    1    1