From the stands, Jay Mullen didn’t like what he saw. He didn’t like that the Soviet basketball team was humiliating its overmatched Ugandan opponents. He didn’t like that the visitors were bigger, stronger, faster, and more skilled than the amateurish Ugandan army and prison guard teams. He didn’t like that the Soviets were outscoring, out-rebounding, and out-everythinging the home team, and didn’t like that they were throwing the ball off the backboard and dunking it. They were putting on a Harlem Globetrotters–type show and the Ugandans were the Generals.
The Soviets had arrived in Kampala a few days earlier, and now they were showing why they had come: to dominate.