For much of the first half, it looked like the U.S. men's basketball team was in serious danger of not advancing to the gold medal game for the first time since 2004. The offense look disjointed, the Australians played with purpose and energy and the Americans did not hit their first three-pointer until late in the second quarter.
The U.S. cut a double-digit deficit to just three points at halftime. From that point on, the switch had been flipped, and Team USA outscored Australia 32–10 in the third quarter to turn an upset alert into a blowout 97–78 win to advance to the final.