Mali beat the Democratic Republic of the Congo 101 to 74 in the FIBA World Cup on Thursday evening. The visitors made it three straight wins, putting a end to a run of defeats that had been gnawing at them. DRC, meanwhile, have now lost five in a row, and the mood in their camp must be thick enough to cut with a knife.
The scoreline tells you everything, and here's the thing — Mali never looked like losing. They took control early and simply kept their side in it, adding to the lead whenever DRC threatened to close the gap. By then, the hosts had already surrendered any hope of a comeback. Mali's shooting was clinical, and they picked one up last week against Côte d'Ivoire, which showed they could hang with anyone. This time, though, they were the ones doing the hanging.
The statistics back up the story. Mali made 36 field goals from 70 attempts, while DRC managed 26 from the same number of shots. The visitors also hit 9 three-pointers to the hosts' 8, and their 16 steals compared with DRC's 4 tells you who was reading the game better. DRC turned the ball over 24 times; Mali managed 11. That kind of disparity doesn't happen by accident.
What this means for the table is straightforward. Mali move into a stronger position, while DRC's position grows more precarious with each defeat. The gap between them is widening, and the hosts are running out of games to fix it. To be fair, Mali have been inconsistent too — they lost to Angola and Côte d'Ivoire in their last two — but there is a difference between inconsistency and collapse.