I made the mostly glorious mistake — the not-so-glorious part was eating two microwavable breakfast burritos immediately before — of staying up until 5 a.m. on Saturday night to watch the men’s Olympic basketball team win gold over Spain, 118-107. (What’s that? You didn’t know? Sorry, NBC actually ran this game within 72 hours of it being live, so you have no excuses.)

Yes, it was completely worth the brutal zombie-like state I endured through all day Sunday.

And not just because America won either; it was a tremendous opportunity to watch a group of the NBA’s finest athletes play together and actually care about something. That this win mattered so much to us, the Americans, was because, well, it mattered so much to them.

The bronze medal in 2004 was nothing short of an embarrassment, obviously, and it was the rock bottom point of a professional attitude towards Olympic basketball that had essentially begun ever since we got bored with domination. So to see Chris Bosh, LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Carmelo Anthony, the members of an insanely staunch draft class, enthusiastically joins forces en route to defeating Spain kept my patriotic buzz rolling well into the a.m.

Kobe Bryant, though, was the story. He went into Mamba Mode midway through the fourth quarter and single handedly staved off the Spaniards insistence on hanging around.

But … what now? Do LeBron, et al keep playing? Or do they step aside for “new talent”? Because the latter would make me sick, frankly. America needs them. They’re young, clearly, and a run at the 2012 Games would hardly be asking too much from any of them.

Kobe could probably opt out, given his age, and clearly Jason Kidd isn’t coming back. So there will be changes necessary. But what made this team go — defense and perimeter shooting be damned — was the enthusiasm of that screaming crew you see above. Wade, Kobe, etc. spent a good five minutes after the Gold was locked up celebrating on the court, bouncing around enthusiastically slinging around high fives and handpounds.

It’s what we want and need to see at home, and even though the games got run so late that most of them were missed by anyone but the most hardcore fan, there’s no reason we should get denied the privilege when Team America (F-Yeah!) suits up in London in four years.