By Onochie Anibeze, reporting from London

Eze Anaba is our Deputy Editor and not here in the Olympics. But his description of the USA – Nigeria basketball match was apt in local parlance.

When he got the result about 1.30 am Friday, his sms read thus: “Man pass man.” There couldn’t be a better way to describe the humiliation the Nigerian basketball team faced in the hands of almighty NBA stars who used the match to set many personal and team records.

At 4.27 minutes left in the match, the score was 139-68, surpassing the previous record of 138 scored by Brazil against Egypt in Seoul Olympics. At the end of the first half, only USA led with 78 points, beating Brazil’s record of 72 in Seoul against China.

Anthony Carmelo had 37 points against Marbury’s record of 31 for a US player in an Olympics match. The winning margin of 83 beat the 72 in a 101 – 29 victory in 1956. It was an incredible 156-73 final score that saw Nigerians in the arena cheering USA. They had no choice and were even happy that they saw a great match.

Chandler Tyson, Kelvin Durant, LeBron James, Kobe Bryant and Paul Chris started and in the first five minutes they were already 20-8 up. When they hit 49-25 to end the first quarter coach Krzyewski Michael didn’t see the need to continue playing Kobe Bryant and left him sitting out while the rest were throwing three pointers as if they were in an exhibition exercise.

At this point, Bryant had already notched 16 points and 2 rebounds. They enjoyed the game, marking well and throwing well. They made incredible shots that would have humiliated any team. And Carmelo pressed that point in a post match media conference when he said that “the way we shot tonight we could have beaten any other team same way.” That was true.

He said that it was a great accomplishment to break records in a classy way, repeating that their shots were “incredible.”

Coach Ayo Bakare said that the match was a hard lesson for the Nigerian team, regretting that they failed to show the world that they were good in a way. But he made it clear that they never counted on the match against USA to qualify for the next round.

The star on the Nigerian side was Ike Diogu, who made 27 points and 7 rebounds.

”We wanted to use the match to show that we could play but we went flat and they shot so well we couldn’t help it,” Diogu said. Fans enjoyed the game. Even those who came to cheer Nigeria dropped sentiment and cheered good basketball. But Diogu was outstanding, scoring 27 points and 7 rebounds in a team that scored a total of 73 points. But the awesome play of USA humbled his efforts and he regretted this even as he appreciated the American superiority.