The United States regained the Gold Medal in men’s basketball on Sunday, defeating the reigning world champion Spanish National team 118-107. They completed the Olympic competition undefeated. The game was close until late in the fourth period. Then the American offense went into gear and led by a four-pointer by Kobe Bryant soared ahead for the victory.

Dwayne Wade led the American scoring with 27 points. Bryant had 20. Rudy Fernandez was the high scorer for the Silver Medalist, Spanish team, with 22 points.

Defending Olympic champion, Argentina, playing without star Manu Ginobili, defeated the Lithuanian team 87-75 on Saturday to earn the Bronze Medal.

It was billed as the rematch, Greece having been the ones to defeat the 2006 USA men’s basketball team for the world championship. However, today’s game bore little resemblence to that earlier contest. Kobe Bryant, LeBron James, and the USA “Redeem Team” started stronger and only got better, besting the Greeks by a score of 92 to 69.

Bryant and Chris Bosh led the scoring with 18 points each, followed by Dwayne Wade with 17 and James with 13 points.

The win earns Team USA a spot in the medal round. Their next contest is with world champions, Spain on Saturday night (Sunday morning in North America). The winner of that game will be the top seed going into the quarterfinals.

In other Olympic basketball action today:
Spain defeated Germany 72-59
Australia defeated Iran 106-68
China defeated Angola 85-68
Lithuania defeated Russia 86-79

LeBron James, Kobe Bryant, and the rest of the so-called USA “Redeem Team” prevailed over Yao Ming and Team China in their opening game of the Olympic men’s basketball competition to win with a score of 101-70. The two teams were close for the first half of the contest, but the US team pulled away during the second half of the third quarter. Dwayne Wade contributed 19 points for the US and LeBron had 18. Ming was the high-scorer for the China team with 13 points.

The game, one of the most anticipated of the Olympic Games, was said to draw more than a billion viewers worldwide (according to NBC.com).

Team USA will face Angola in their next game, on Tuesday.

Other Sunday Olympic men’s basketball results are as follows:
Russia over Iran - 71 to 49
Lithuania over defending Gold Medalist, Argentina - 79 to 75
Germany over Angola - 95 to 66
Spain over Greece - 81 to 66
Croatia over Australia - 97 to 82.

^{(photo © Newscom)}

Today, Team USA played Australia in the final “friendly” (exhibition) game prior to the Beijing Olympics. This victory wasn’t quite as easy as their four previous games, but the “Redeem Team” prevailed for a 87 to 76 win. Dwayne Wade had 22 points and LeBron James had 16 for the Americans; Patrick Mills and Chris Anstey each had 13 points for the Australians.

Team USA faces China in the first round of the Olympic competition on Sunday. Below are the highlights:

LeBron may have still been sidelined with an ankle injury, but Team Canada was never in the game against Team USA in the pre-Olympic exhibition game last night. Dwayne Wade, Carmelo Anthony, and Michael Redd each scored 20 points in the 120-65 victory. Here are the highlights: