U.S. beats Serbia to win Basketball World Cup

With golden confetti raining on their heads and “Party in the U.S.A’’ ringing in their ears, it must have been hard for the U.S. basketball players to hear anything.

Doesn’t matter. They had stopped listening long ago.

All the questions about their talent, the doubts about their ability, were put down as easily as their opponents.

Tournament MVP Kyrie Irving made all six of his 3-point attempts and scored 26 points, and the U.S. repeated as world champion for the first time by crushing Serbia 129-92 on Sunday in the Basketball World Cup.

James Harden added 23 points for the Americans, who made 11 of 16 3-pointers in a sensational-shooting first half, adding one final romp to a tournament full of them.

This depleted team that was supposedly weak enough to lose was too good to be touched. The Americans came in winning by 32.5 points per game and their closest victory in the tournament was by 21 points over Turkey.

They thought they would get a tough game Sunday, but were simply too good to let that happen.

They finished at 58 percent from the field. They made 15 of 30 3-point attempts and had eight of their 12 players score in double figures.

AP