Bogdan Bogdanovic had 28 points and Serbia beat South Sudan 96-85 on Saturday to punch its ticket for next week’s Olympic men’s basketball quarterfinals in Paris.
Nikola Jokic added 22 points and 13 rebounds for Serbia, which finished second in Group C behind the U.S. South Sudan’s loss means Greece gets the final wild card for the knockout round by virtue of having a better point differential over its three group-stage games than South Sudan.
Marial Shayok and Carlik Jones led South Sudan with 17 points each.
Serbia — ranked fourth in the world by FIBA — led 33rd-ranked South Sudan 47-44 at halftime.
There were also all-out effort plays, like Wenyen Gabriel sprinting for a chase-down block on Aleksa Avramovic during a fast-paced first quarter.
Serbia’s lead remained in single digits in the third quarter, falling to 59-58 on a two-handed dunk by Gabriel.
But Serbia found some offensive rhythm after a timeout and opened a 65-58 lead on back-to-back 3s by Bogdanovic.
Serbia led by five entering the fourth. And South Sudan kept coming, using a Peter Jok steal and alley-oop to Gabriel to bring the crowd to a roar and shrink the margin to a basket.
Serbia just kept making shots, using a 19-3 spurt to take a 91-74 lead with less than three minutes left.
