Basketball 2016 Rio Olympic Preview

Men’s Event

The expected eight teams made it through the group stages, setting up some intriguing quarter-final ties. Three of the games were relative blowouts. The United States beat Argentina, Australia beat Lithuania and Spain beat France. The closest game was Serbia beating Croatia by three points, with Croatia almost coming back from a fourteen-point deficit, at the end of the third quarter. A close battle came in the semi-finals as the United States beat Spain by six points in a low-scoring contest behind Klay Thompson’s 22. In the final, they came up against Serbia, who comfortably defeated Australia behind strong performances of Milos Teodosic and Nikola Jokic. Spain won a classic in the third place play-off, with Sergio Rodriguez sinking two free throws with five seconds remaining to get a one-point victory. The United States then beat Serbia comfortably to seal gold.

🥇United States of America 🇺🇸

🥈Serbia 🇷🇸

🥉Spain 🇪🇸

Women’s Event

Once again, it took an expected route with the United States averaging 104 points in their group stage games. In the knockouts, that was knocked down to 99 with France coming closest to them, only losing by 19 points. Apart from the American games, all the other quarter-finals were close with only nine points difference in three games. France, Spain and Serbia beat Canada, Turkey and Australia respectively. Spain got a good win over Serbia to qualify for the final, where the United States defeated them. Serbia, led by a huge third quarter, beat France to take the bronze medal.

🥇United States of America 🇺🇸

🥈Spain 🇪🇸

🥉Serbia 🇷🇸