France's Rudy Gobert absolutely destroyed the U.S. in the FIBA World Cup

Rudy Gobert.
(Image credit: Zhong Zhi /Getty Images)

The United States national basketball team just had their lunch handed to them by France's Rudy Gobert.

France defeated the U.S., 89-79, in the FIBA World Cup quarterfinals Wednesday in Dongguan, China. Gobert, the NBA's reigning Defensive Player of the Year, dominated the game with 21 points, 16 rebounds, and 3 blocks — including a key one on his Utah Jazz teammate, Donovan Mitchell, in the game's waning moments — to propel his team into the semifinals, where they'll take on Argentina on Friday.

Mitchell, poured in 29 points for the U.S. squad, but his performance wasn't enough. It was a disappointing loss for the U.S., who won the last two FIBA World Cup tournaments, but not an entirely unexpected one. Aside from the fact that France is certainly no slouch, the U.S. roster was thin after many of the NBA's best players declined to travel to China so as to avoid injury before the start of the NBA season in October.

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The team is expected to have much more talent for the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo, for which they've already qualified.

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Tim O'Donnell

Tim is a staff writer at The Week and has contributed to Bedford and Bowery and The New York Transatlantic. He is a graduate of Occidental College and NYU's journalism school. Tim enjoys writing about baseball, Europe, and extinct megafauna. He lives in New York City.