USA Basketball gets the one seed
USA bracket
Noah Lyles wins the 100 in an unreal finish
Team USA wins the Gold over Australia
Simone Biles greatness
Mac on sports
Team USA dominating the Olympics, Basketball preview
On today's episode of Mack on Sports, we talk about Team USA taking down Puerto Rico, moving to 3-0 in the Olympic group stages as they get ready to go to the quarterfinal against Brazil as the number one overall seed. We talk about Noah Lyles' fun finish and Team USA basketball and the NBA community versus Noah Lyles and Noah Lyles against them. That is a little rivalry that is actually kind of funny. We talk some Olympic swimming. The USA Australia rivalry on how the USA ends the final with the final laugh and gets the upper hand over Australia to end the Olympics for the swimming portion. It's a good one. Sit back and enjoy. We got a good show coming your way. Let's ride! [Music] [Music] What is going on guys? Happy August the 5th and Team USA gets out of the group unscarred with no losses. It was a battle-tested group though. A South Sudan pushed them to the limits in Game 2. They took Cara Serbia in Game 1 and in Game 3 after Puerto Rico came out and started on a huge run that had the US calling time out where towards the end of that first quarter Puerto Rico was looking like they're going to hang around for an upset potential if they keep shooting the three ball that they were. All of a sudden doesn't matter as the USA takes down Puerto Rico in a dominant second half fashion. Puerto Rico is a team that has some talent. I mean Tremont Waters, former Celtic, legit. Jose Alvarado plays in the NBA and he is a pesky defender. He makes plays happen and you know guys in the NBA will tell you he is one of the toughest defenders in the NBA. So I mean they've got some guys that have good experience. A Puerto Rico team in that first half was shooting the lights out of the ball. They couldn't miss. They truly could not miss to save their life and it was like USA we got to wake up here at some point. This is getting a little too close for comfort. In the end it ended up not mattering USA takes down Puerto Rico. They win the point differential battle over Germany for the one seed and if you're the United States you couldn't ask for a better group. When you look at the two sides of the bracket the USA find themselves on the side with the likes of Brazil who they match up with Tuesday at 3.30 in the quarterfinals. They will be heavy favorites expect the US to be able to absolute dominate Brazil. You look in the upper part of the bracket it is Serbia versus Australia. You've already taken care of business against Serbia. If you have to meet up with them in the semifinals you expect to do the same. They don't have the firepower that the US does. I mean yes they have Nicole Yochich who is the best player probably in the Olympics for basketball but one guy is not going to be a one man drum to be a absolute super team in the United States. You would certainly not think and then if you get to Australia, Josh Giddy, Patty Mills they got really really good players for the Australian team. But if you're the US you couldn't ask for a better side of your group because if you are going to ask who you wanted to avoid the three teams you wanted to avoid were Germany with Dennis Schroeder and look and FIBA rules. Dennis Schroeder is one of the best players in international basketball when it comes to FIBA rules international rules. It's a different set than NBA rules. They have a little different playing style than what the NBA players are used to. It's a lot more physical 40 minute games. The three point line is you know closer into the rim or basket. Look Dennis Schroeder is an absolute star when it comes to international basketball and FIBA rules. He has been one of the better players at one of the best if not the best player in the entire Olympics so far. Four team Germany you know they have the Wagner brothers they have some very good talent. You could you can make an argument that the second best team in the world coming into these Olympics they are legit. They finished second behind the United States on a point differential. They went 3-0 through their group. Yes that means they took down France and they did it in a dominant fashion so Germany having them on the other side of the bracket that was one you didn't really have to worry about. You knew it was probably going to be them one A or one B behind you maybe one or you know two C like they were going to finish second or third. You weren't really worried about Germany falling through the four spot the five spot coming onto your side of the bracket no no no you were in a pretty comfortable perspective that Germany was not going to see you after the first two games that they were going to be on the other side. The teams you had to keep an eye on and the tab on was Canada and France and somehow some way the USA don't have to play either one of them and what makes things even better talk about one hell of a matchup right talk about a hell of a matchup. Canada Canada the three seed the three seed Canada having to face France in round one Canada France round one is a it's a gold medal type of final right there I'm not gonna lie like you could honestly make a case that yes there is a world where Canada and France could play in the gold medal match over the US. Now look it's not likely coming into the tournament you know you would think the US are going to be the regardless but if the US weren't there who would you say that could be there and it would be Canada and France. Having that as a quarter final game is an absolutely unbelievable game. Canada with the likes of Shay Gilges Alexander, Dylan Brooks, Lou Dorr, RJ Barrett, Jamal Murray look Canada Canada is a real threat to win this thing. Canada is a real threat to win this thing and if you're Canada and if you're France really you don't want to see the US either. So in a way it kind of works out for everybody. No yeah Canada is going to have to go through this way of in round one having to play France and in round two having to potentially play Germany and then if you get to the final you play the United States. Look that's a tough bracket that's a very very tough bracket but that gives you an opportunity to get to the gold medal game and that's all you're asking for. You would honestly rather go through that gauntlet of France and Germany than having to play the United States in the semis potentially even quarters. You want the opportunity to get to a gold medal game and you can you know lock up a medal and that's what you're seeing more likely than not for Canada unless they lose to France. Now look one of these two teams either Canada or France will not be playing for a medal which that is kind of hard to think of and a card to fathom because coming into it you would have probably put the rankings as USA one Canada two and then interchange France and Germany but you probably give the little bit of an edge to France over Germany so having them play in the quarter finals is going to be an absolutely unbelievable game between these two teams on Tuesday afternoon. I believe they're the 12 o'clock slate. That's going to be a great game. You know when you look at France they've been a little underwhelming especially in front of the home country they've played tight they haven't played their best basketball you saw Germany run them out of the gym that was a little bit surprising to me the likes of Victor when Yama he's had good moments but you're still waiting for them to take that next step and just dominate everybody at an absolute elite elite level. We've yet to kind of see that from France. We've seen them hang around with Japan where Japan even almost upset France but we have not really got to see the French just absolutely put the pedal to the metal and dominate someone for 40 straight minutes. Now yes Fiba basketball is only 40 minutes instead of 48 like the NBA but France has not looked like one of the favorites as we originally probably thought that they would be but when you look at this bracket you couldn't ask for a better bracket for the United States. I continue to say that but it's true. You couldn't ask for a better bracket for the United States. The United States got the bracket that they exactly wanted that they were exactly hoping for and that is a great thing if you are the US. This is a US team that is finding their stride. Now I've said it before and I set it in the lead up games up to this point. Look it's no secret. The United States have not been great coming out from the start. The second half has been phenomenal in majority of every game they played but they've had slow starts and if you do that against the Canada of France or Germany it can come back to bite you in the butt. Brazil on the other hand the team who USA plays on Tuesday at 3.30 in game one of the quarter finals they're really good too. They're really good too. They they took France. They took France to the final buzzer like that was a close game for the majority of the game. Brazil's got guys that can play so team USA's got to be careful but you know USA comes into this game against Brazil. 27 and a half point favorites should absolutely destroy Brazil if they take care of business expecting them to. You look at Canada and France. Canada's the or high favorite here. They're an eight point favorite over France. Kind of surprising and it would be a very very very very disappointing tournament for France if they get out of the quarter finals especially on home soil. Serbia should take care of Australia. I would think yokech is too much for you know the Australian paint to kind of be able to take care of and then when you look at Greece Grecianus Antecacumbo anything can happen. Anything can happen. They match up with Germany early on Tuesday so a lot of great games Tuesday is a great great great great day of Olympic basketball and sports. I am so excited for Tuesday it is going to be a great day to watch a lot of Olympic basketball to say the least. Now basketball of course of the number one on the headline but the other things that we have to talk about is we have to talk about what a day Sunday was. In Sunday morning look Sundays aren't great for sports wise you get afternoon baseball that gets you through your day that's great or people have a life and actually go outside and watch sports or do other things and watch sports not me. I love watching sports so that's what I do but Sundays are pretty rough right. Sundays are pretty rough. You get to watch your favorite baseball team in the afternoon but you don't have much else to do sports wise let me tell you the Olympics gave us a treat. The Olympics gave us an absolute treat on Sunday morning. They gave us Novak Djokovic vs Carlos Alcaras and the golf gold medal championship at the same time. Have a day Olympics. What a morning for sports. The fact that you got Joker and Alcaras on the clay and Scotty Scheffler going for gold was unbelievable unbelievable. We needed a day like that in sports and that's exactly what we got. Novak Djokovic took down Carlos Alcaras to win his first Olympic gold medal ever. Novak Djokovic had not won a tournament all year long he lost to Carlos Alcaras and Wimbledon just three weeks ago over there in England and he got his revenge on the clay to win his first gold medal ever ever and you look at the Olympic or you look at the career the tennis career that Novak Djokovic has put together. He is the greatest tennis player of all time. He's done it all. He's won multiple grand slams. Every big venue in tennis he has put his foot in the sand and made his mark. He has won everywhere that he has been. The only thing that he has yet to win was a gold medal. I don't think we've seen Novak Djokovic is that emotional in his professional tennis career. He was on the clay visibly shaking. His hand was shaking in the clay. He was crying his tears of joy. He was the happiest man on earth and I don't think we've ever got to see Novak Djokovic with that type of expression and that type of excitement. Absolutely unbelievable from Novak to take down Alcaras in an absolutely unbelievable game to say the least. It was a very very good game. What a Sunday morning of tennis. What a Sunday morning of tennis. Absolutely amazing. And then you flip the channel and you have an absolute incredible blending in golf. You have Scotty Sheppler going for gold. Scotty who you know was kind of in the background. You know that like me you know you just think on your car objects in mirror are closer than they appear. That was kind of what Scotty was doing all weekend. He was on her tail but you didn't really have to worry about Scotty. He was around the six seven eight range. It's not looking like Scotty's gonna win the gold and then go out and shoot a 62 on Sunday. Some of his best golf in the tournament gets him into the leaderboard with a 19 under. Put all the pressure in the world on Tommy Fleetwood and when there's a gold medal at stake the pressure seemed to get a little higher. Tommy on hole 17 shoots a bogey to draw from 19 under to 18 under and that gives your boy Scotty Sheppler another win to his unbelievable historic career that he has gotten. Scotty Sheppler in the year of 2024 it's the year of Scotty Sheppler. It is the year of Scotty Sheppler. He is having an unbelievable year. Absolutely unbelievable. He won the Masters. He's won everything that you can think of for the most part and now to get an Olympic gold medal onto his resume. Greatness. We've not had this type of greatness since Tiger Woods. We haven't. We haven't. And this was an unbelievable golf tournament that the Olympics put on because I think this this is going to kind of be a another it kind of has another major feel and I think every four years you're gonna get a fifth major and that fifth major is going to be the Olympics because the players cared the players played their best brand of tennis and it was something that was really exciting to watch. The 2028 Olympics are in LA. It's at a beautiful course. I expect the world's best tenant or not tennis. The world's best golf players excuse me to end up finding themselves there and we should have another unbelievable tournament. We should have an absolutely another unbelievable tournament. So the world of golf should be pleased because it was a major major win for golf this weekend and what a golf tournament. It just felt like it was a big tournament. It felt like watching Scotty add it to his resume just continues to just show the greatness of Scotty Sheffler and it was fun. It came down to the wire and boy oh boy was it a good one. It certainly certainly certainly was. Now Noah Lyles. If you don't know the back story about Noah Lyles he is a track and field runner for the USA. He has a big I wouldn't say hatred but a lack of respect is the better end for guys in the NBA. Noah Lyles has the famous press conference where he says you know what I hate. That's when NBA teams win a championship and they call themselves world champions. World champions of what? Noah Lyles says. World champions of what? America? That's exactly what Noah Lyles thinks about USA basketball. Like if you win a championship in the NBA. He thinks you're not world champions. You're American champions. Well technically he is not wrong but where he is wrong is if the Boston Celtics went to go play the Greek champs. Olympia Azics I believe is their name or something like that. The Celtics are going to actually run them off the floor. It's a level of difference in talent. It is. So the NBA community does not like Noah Lyles. Team USA basketball went out there and I do believe they kind of went to watch him in hindsight maybe kind of hoping he would lose. I know a lot of people on Twitter was hoping he would lose and it's weird to cheer against an American as an American but that's kind of the rivalry that's kind of divided between Noah Lyles and a lot of the US basketball American fan base. They're rooting for him to lose. The best event right now at the Olympics was that Noah Lyles 100 meter dash race. It looked like the Jamaican was going to win and Noah Lyles ends up with a stretch at the finish line for the win of an ages of getting a gold medal P1 by 0.05 milliseconds. 0.5 milliseconds to get a gold medal to say he is the fastest human in the world. It doesn't get any better than that. It doesn't get any better than that. He led the race for 0.5 milliseconds but it was enough to get him a gold medal and now look the NBA community and a lot of people on Twitter were about to fire off their victory parade labs that he lost you know because he was going to get trolled all over social media but he ends up winning in an absolute unbelievable fashion as close as you can get. A lot of these sports are fun to watch. Track and field is pretty electric to watch I'd say so myself but Noah Lyles got the gold and it was actually a big gold because it ties China the US and China tied for the most gold medals in the Olympics so far so massive win for Noah Lyles to get the United States on top with China for most golds at this at these Olympics. Now we look at swimming and we're talking rivalries Lyles against US basketball. What about Australia and USA swimming? This is a rivalry with hatred with hatred. The best brings out the best rivalry spinning out the best in each other and Australia got off to a pretty hot start against the US and these Olympics and swimming where it looked like it was a disappointing Olympics for the United States. It looked like it was a very unfortunate Olympics for the United States swimming where it was one of the weakest of all time and it is still a pretty weak Olympics for the United States swimming but yet they still won the most gold medals. Eight gold medals for Team USA swimming to Australia 7. That's all that matters. That's all that matters. It's all that matters is if USA swimming stays on top of Australia and that's exactly what they did. It is a absolute heated rivalry a lot of passion and you know both countries really one of those bragging rights to say we have the most golds and the USA into the final race the women's 400 tied seven to seven with Australia on gold medals end up going out and getting that gold to give them the edge for the most gold medals of swimming in the Olympics. So even though it wasn't their best it still turns out to be a pretty damn good year for USA swimming in the Olympics. That was absolutely electrifying to watch. There is no more swimming for the rest of the Olympics but that is one of the most fun sports to watch and one of the most electrifying sports to watch to save the least. I thoroughly enjoyed it. I thought it was really good and yeah Team USA swimming are your Olympic champions. So that was fun though. That was absolutely fun and big bragging rights once again for Team USA Olympics swimming no a liles big bragging rights and you're looking at Team USA basketball trying to get on that pedestal for the next type of bragging rights or I'm sure lino and liles will have some stuff to say about that. But Simone Biles won another gold. She won on vault I believe and she ended up winning the team all around and all around individual. She is absolutely ridiculous at what she does. She's absolutely ridiculous at what she does. She is absolutely incredible to say the absolute least and yeah she's the best Olympic athlete I think ever. Michael Phelps is right there but I think Simone Biles is just in a level of her own where she is just absolutely ridiculous. So shout out Simone Biles grabbing another gold for the USA and that's going to do it in this episode of the Macon Sports Podcast. I love you guys and I will see you guys next episode. Love you guys. Peace out.