With basketball's version of the World Cup looming in 2014 or 2015, yesterday was our last chance to watch an old-school, do-or-die, Olympics hoops quadruple-header featuring the best players from the world's best basketball countries. Did I abandon my pre-Olympics pledge to only catch five basketball games total, skip every other event on Wednesday and throw myself into this veritable hoop orgy? Of course I did! Was there ever a doubt?

In my defense, this was a do-or-die tournament with a staggering amount of world-class talent on hand, including LeBron James, Kevin Durant, Carmelo Anthony, Chris Paul and Kobe Bryant (NBA superstars); the Gasol Brothers, Tony Parker, Manu Ginobili, Kevin Love, Tyson Chandler, Deron Williams and Russell Westbrook (NBA stars); Andrei Kirilenko, Nene Hilario, Anderson Varejao, Leandro Barbosa, Serge Ibaka, Nicolas Batum, Boris Diaw, Luis Scola, Andre Iguodala, James Harden, Kevin Seraphin and Anthony Davis (legitimate NBA players); Alexei Shved, Jonas Valanciunas, Sergio Llull, Victor Claver, Nando de Colo and Pablo Prigioni (future NBA players); Tiago Splitter, Carlos Delfino, Patrick Mills, Linas Kleiza, Jose Calderon, Ronny Turiaf and Andres Nocioni (NBA bench guys); and Viktor Khryapa, Sergey Monya, Sarunas Jasikevicius, Darius Songaila, Rudy Fernandez, Alex Garcia, Sergio Rodriguez, Juan Carlos Navarro, Mickael Gelabale and David Andersen (former NBA players).

That's 48 quality players, not counting all the other sneaky-decent guys strewn throughout this day (like everyone on Australia, for instance). Did I mention every game was do-or-die? Here's one man's breakdown of everything that happened, game by game by game by game.

RUSSIA 83, LITHUANIA 74

WHAT HAPPENED, IN A NUTSHELL: Russia blew a double-digit lead, then put the game away late thanks to some timely 3-point shooting from the Blazers Edge Message Board All-Stars (Sergey Monya and Viktor Khryapa) and the best player on the floor (Andrei Kirilenko: 19 points, 13 rebounds). I didn't realize how bad Game 1's guards were until the next game, when Tony Parker showed up and it was like, "Oh, yeah, that's what playing guard is supposed to look like!" The good news: They'll always have that near-upset of Team USA from the weekend. Everything else was whatever Lithuanian gravy tastes like.

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MVP OF THE GAME: A stunningly rejuvenated Kirilenko! Even after hearing the comeback buzz (starting with his Euroleague MVP last year) and seeing him look sharp on TV, I didn't want to weigh in until I saw him in person … and I gotta say, he looks like the Old Kirilenko. You know, the high-energy two-way slasher who gets to one rim and protects the other. Remember, this is a former all-world defender who (a) once shut down T-Mac in T-Mac's prime on the single biggest play of an All-Star Game, (b) averaged an astonishing 4.9 stocks (steals + blocks) in the 2004-05 season, and (c) averaged 15-16 points per game pretty easily once upon a time. So what happened? Maybe he refueled his batteries abroad. Maybe he was just homesick. Maybe he needed a prolonged sabbatical from getting stink-eyed by Jerry Sloan and Deron Williams. Maybe just having a normal haircut again (finally) got him going. Whatever happened, I'm officially willing to reconsider the wisdom of Minnesota's two-year, $20 million Kirilenko signing; maybe it wasn't an out-and-out salary capastrophe. Is that possible?

(Important note: I was way more impressed with Kirilenko's Euroleague MVP season until I Googled the previous winners: Anthony Parker, Anthony Parker, Theo Papaloukas, Juan Koktostin, Ramunas Siskauskas, Juan Carlos Navarro, Milos Teodosic and Dimitris Diamantidis. Yes, I made one of those names up.)

MOST INTERESTING PLAYER I HADN'T SEEN BEFORE: Russia's Alexey Shved (another Minnesota signing) plays like the illegitimate son of Brent Barry and Rudy Fernandez, only with Ricky Rubio's hair. You're not gonna believe this based on that description, but he can't guard anyone, looks like he doesn't totally have a position (he's a good ball handler who isn't really a point guard), and definitely isn't strong enough for the NBA … although he's perfected the "I can't believe I just missed that wide-open 3" sulky stomp back to the other end. We've been down this road with these super-fun international players before — they look appealing in tournaments like this one, then they get thrown into the NBA and warts start popping up left and right. So who knows?

(The good news: I already have him ranked above Yaroslav Korolev on the "Greatest Russian Basketball Players of the Last 30 Years" list.)

UNIFORM SHOWDOWN: Lithuania's snazzy green-and-yellow duds won by a landslide over Russia's white-and-red unis with what appeared to be a red '70s kitchen curtain pattern on both sides. Don't worry, the warm-up jackets that Russia's fans were wearing were even worse. Here, check it out.

NATIONAL ANTHEM WINNER: I didn't arrive in time for the anthems and didn't want to pretend I was there (just think, before the rise of sports blogs, you could totally do stuff like that!), but after some extensive YouTubing, I'm giving this battle to Russia — if only for the Nikolai Volkoff flashbacks.

IN-GAME STORY LINE THAT MAY HAVE ENTERTAINED ME AND ME ONLY: Even if the Timofey Mozgov–Jonas Valanciunas center battle didn't bring back memories of Russell and Chamberlain, or even Dave Cowens and Tom Boerwinkle, I loved watching the guy who nearly derailed the Carmelo deal before realizing his meaninglessbackupbigmanian destiny in Denver (Mozgov) outplaying the top-five lottery pick that Toronto stashed away last summer (Valanciunas). On the bright side for Raptors fans …

1. Even if Valanciunas doesn't seem like he knows where to go or what to do, and even if his pick-and-roll defense could only be described as calamitous, he's only 20 AND he hustles. So there's hope.

2. At least they ended up with Landry Fields instead of Steve Nash.

MORAL VICTORY FOR THE LOSERS: Just a great turnout by Lithuania's fans, who showed up in droves and flooded the outside of the arena looking for tickets before the game. (I didn't get there in time to see that, but press table seat-mate Jeff Zillgitt told me it was like "A Phish concert outside, minus the patchouli.") So they had that going for them. Oh, and Lithuania had the best "Just made a 3 and did a happy fist pump while skipping down the court" guys in the tournament (copyright: Hickory High).

LINGERING QUESTION NO. 1: This doesn't rank among the top-20 most interesting answers to "Imagine if the Soviet Union never crumbled" … but imagine if the Soviet Union never crumbled...