Mike Krzyzewski defended his team’s record setting performance against Nigeria on Thursday and angrily dismissed suggestions that the United States tried to humiliate the African nation in its 156-73 win.

A foreign reporter initially asked Nigeria coach Ayodele Bakare if he felt the Americans were guilty of running up the score. Bakare, though, sounded more impressed than angry by what the NBA players had accomplished. Moments later, Krzyzewski, unsolicited, addressed the topic, and called the question offensive.

“We didn’t play LeBron [James] and Kobe [Bryant] in the second half, and with Carmelo (Anthony) shooting like that, we benched him,” Krzyzewski said after Anthony scored a U.S. Olympic record of 37 points in 14 minutes and 29 seconds. “We didn’t take any fast breaks in the fourth quarter, and we played all zone. You have to take a shot every 24 seconds, and the shots we took happened to be hit.

“I take offense to this question because there’s no way in the world that our program in the United States sets out to humiliate anymore.”

Coach K then turn to Bakare and said: “Coach would think it humiliating if we didn’t play hard.”

The 83-point victory included a team record 29 3-pointers including 10 from Carmelo. The U.S. also set the all-time Olympic record for points.

“On the one side, it’s terrible to get whupped like that,” Nigeria’s Koko Archibong said. “But on the other side, it was something impressive to be a part of – impressive to witness in person.”The performance conjured up images of the 1992 Dream Team which was never challenged when the NBA players made their Olympic debut in Barcelona. But not even Michael Jordan and Magic Johnson experienced a win so lopsided. Their largest margin of victory was 79 points against Cuba.

The U.S. faces plays Lithuania on Saturday and plays its final group game on Monday against Argentina
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 On the night that closed the book on their rivalry, Michael Phelps and Ryan Lochte slipped into old roles and seemed to switch personalities as if under some sorcerer’s spell. Lochte, who had taken to describing himself as “happy-go-Lochte” and whose response to any question in the lead-up to the Olympics about mushrooming expectations was, “It’s just swimming,” was the pinched-faced man of few words.

Lochte, who came into these Games with the goal of winning medals in all seven of his events, faded on the final laps of his last four races while trying to simulate the program that carried Phelps’s 16-medal performance at the 2004 and 2008 Games. Lochte concluded his program on Thursday night with his best two events, the 200-meter backstroke and the 200 individual medley, and looked tapped out while losing both.

In the 200-meter backstroke, Lochte, the defending champion, was beaten to the wall by his American teammate Tyler Clary, who was timed in 1:53.41. (Lochte equaled his gold medal winning time of four years ago with a 1:53.94.) Twenty-seven minutes later, Lochte stepped on to the blocks to race Phelps in the 200 individual medley in the duel that wasn’t. Phelps, a four-time Olympian, raced to a wire-to-wire victory for his 16th gold medal, becoming the first man to win a swimming event at three consecutive Games and the only Olympian with 20 career medals.

“To be the first to three-peat is something pretty special to me,” Phelps said, adding, “It’s cool to add it to the résumé.”

A little over 30 minutes later, he returned to the water and qualified first for the final of the 100 butterfly, an event in which Phelps is the two-time defending champion. It was his final semifinal swim, and strangely, as the clock winds down on his career, he appears to be speeding up. Read more →