The first ever South American Summer Olympics kicks off this Saturday, and you can be sure that Team USA Basketball fans would like to see the players make the country proud yet again. After all, the United States is the most successful country where Olympic basketball is concerned, picking up 14 out of 17 golds since it was a medal-worthy event in 1936. Did you know that the ladies too, have a gold medal to pick up? Team USA also dominated women’s basketball at the Olympics since 1976 by winning 7 titles out of 9 participations.
Hence, you can be sure that such a juggernaut in the sporting world will have a large following, and you might want to take down notes on when Team USA will be taking to the court. Google is your friend if you are on the move and are in a hurry. All that you need to do is Google for the keywords “Basketball Rio 2016” and you will be presented with a neat diagram that shows off the schedules as well as results from past matches. This will cover both mens and womens basketball, not to mention the athletes involved as well.
Team USA is set to get their engines cranking this August 7th at 6.00AM EDT, and such information is easily obtained from the pull down menu after the Google keyword search is performed. You also have the options to select from “Gender” and “Stage”.
Of course, those who prefer a more macro view of things can always check out the International Basketball Federation (FIBA)’s website, where it will yield all of the latest up-to-date results as well. If you prefer to just settle for Team USA and its developments, the official USA Basketball website will get the job done in a neat and timely manner, too.
Team USA will be competing against the likes of Australia, China, France, Serbia and Venezuela under Group A, while it will eventually face opponents in Group B from a pool that comprises of Argentina, Brazil, Croatia, Lithuania, Nigeria and Spain.
Needless to say, the group matches should not prove too much of a challenge for our men, but things might get a wee bit edgy from Wednesday, August 17 onward, as that is when the quarterfinals will be played. Assuming Team USA make it all the way there and beat their opponents, they will get a day's respite before returning for more court action on August 19 in a bid to enter the finals. Should they overcome their opponents there too, the final hurdle would be on August 21, where the Gold medal game will be held at 2.45pm EDT.
As for the ladies, they will be in Group B with Canada, China, Senegal, Serbia and Spain, while most probably knocking out some other opponents from Group A later such as Australia, Belarus, Brazil, France, Japan and Turkey. The ladies will open their account against Senegal on August 7 at 11.00am EDT, and the quarterfinals will be held on August 16. If our determined ladies make their way to the semifinals that will be played on August 18, then it would be up to them to bring home gold for the 8th out of 10 attempts on August 20 at 2.30pm EDT.
You should be able to catch live streams of the Rio 2016 Olympics Basketball event from NBCOlympics. All in all, it would be best to check with your local stations on the programming schedule, but as the dates and times have already been mentioned, make sure your diary has freed up some space to support our heroes and heroines on the basketball court!
