It was a golden evening for the United States with Maurice Greene and Marion Jones putting on quite a show in the Olympic Stadium. Jones' winning the 100-meters was by a greater margin than anyone in Olympic history. A few hundred yards away in the Dome, Team USA basketball team continued its unbeaten -- but not quite as spectacular -- run towards the gold by defeating New Zealand 102-56.

The highlight of the game actually took place after the contest was over when all 12 New Zealand players performed a tribal dance which was intended to put fear into their opponent. Great choreography, but bad timing. Wouldn't it serve better to perform such an act before going into battle? All in all, a unique gesture by a team totally out-manned on the court. To put it in perspective, I doubt that this New Zealand club would finish in the upper half of most top collegiate conferences. They qualified for their first Olympics due to the fact that Australia got an automatic bid as the host of the Games. Thus the Oceania region of FIBA came down to a playoff between New Zealand and Guam, a game New Zealand won 125-43.

The New Zealand team performs a Haka, a traditional war dance to show respect to opponents.(AP)

For the Dream Team -- and this will be the last time I refer to them in this term -- the game, despite the competition, was a much better performance than the horrible outing vs. Lithuania on Thursday night. They were without Alonzo Mourning, who traveled 9,000 miles after the game Thursday to return to Miami for the birth of his second child --- who by the way arrived just 17 minutes after Alonzo got home. Congratulations to the Mournings and great timing.

The U.S. big men, particularly Antonio McDyess (15 pts., 5 reb.) and Kevin Garnett (14 pts., 6 reb.) really stepped up in Mourning's absence and really provided all that the U.S. team needed inside. The team shot an amazing 28 of 39 (71 percent) on its two-point attempts and had 26 assists with much better ball movement. Allan Houston, getting into the groove after suffering a slight wrist injury, hit 4 of 5 three-point shots and should become a significant player in future games as other teams are sure to resort to the packed-in man-to-man defenses or zones as shown by Lithuania. However, there's still no sign of a killer instinct on the defensive end of the floor. An instinct that will be necessary in the final game of the opening round Monday against France and the medal rounds to come.

You could put France, Lithuania, Italy, Australia, Canada, Russia and Yugoslavia in a dead heat right now as to which team will win the silver medal. There is very little difference between them. You could also say however that each of these teams are gaining confidence after watching each American game -- confidence in the fact that I'm sure they all feel that they could possibly beat the U.S. team. That in itself is an amazing phenomena.

Notes and observations from Sydney

In the U.S. we often are very critical of institutions such as the NCAA, the NBA and the IRS. But I have never seen decision making from any of those organizations quite like what is going on with the IOC here in Sydney. I can't imagine how some of the following incidents would play if these games were in the United States and involved American athletes.

In the women's gymnastics competition, for some unknown reason, the horse on the vault exercises was set 5 cm lower than required. And unfortunately for the women, such a miscalculation created unbelievable falls and, fortunately for the IOC, no serious injuries. Svetlana Khorkina of Russia was leading the field after a fantastic 9.8 floor exercise. She tried to perform her exercise on the vault and unbelievably did not suffer serious injury, but obviously scored nothing after her dismount. It was later found that the horse was 5 cm too low. The IOC decided that the proper tactic would be to allow the girls to do the exercise over again. It is amazing to me that the evening's activities were not cancelled giving the women an opportunity to perform fairly and with their minds back in the proper perspective. To think that these gymnasts have worked all their lives to be so emotionally upset is hard for me to comprehend.

There is a huge problem with the scalping of tickets here in Sydney -- a problem that could be solved very easily. But the IOC found there is no evidence that any of the five major national committees sold their tickets knowing that their tickets would be in the hands of ticket scalpers. A whitewash investigation if I ever saw one.

And finally, the initial decision to allow Bulgaria to compete in weightlifting after two of their medal winners tested positive for drugs if Bulgaria would agree to pay a $50,000 fine. What possibly could be the rationale for a decision such as that? Fortunately with additional testing and considerations, Bulgaria was expelled from the games and drug-free athletes elevated to their proper positions including Tara Nott, an American woman who actually won the first gold medal in the history of women's weightlifting.

But all in all it has been a tremendous show and a great organization and spirit shown by the citizens of Australia.