Draw held for Olympic basketball tournaments

Posted April 27, 2008 at 03:12 PM by Os Davis

Section: Beijing 2008, Events, Basketball, Featured Writers, Os Davis

With much fun and frivolity from hoops dignitaries such as Lisa Leslie and Wang Zhi Zhi was the random draw held to set the first round of competition for the Beijing Games. The somewhat complex ritual was performed (yes, that’s the word) between the bronze-medal match and finals of the Good Luck Beijing 2008 women’s basketball tournament on Saturday.

And o boy – surely this was inevitable with this many high-quality squads – can hoops fans already start getting excited about day one of the August tourney.

In the men’s bracket, the groups have Argentina, Australia, Iran, Lithuania, Russia, and one further qualifier in A; Group B comprises China, Spain, USA, Angola (again putting the African champion in the all-too-familiar position of an early drubbing at the hands of Team USA), and two other qualifiers.

Thanks to a second draw setting the “places” for each team, we’re also fortunate enough to already begin dreaming about three Games 1: the up-and-comers of Russia versus the unknown youth-laden quantity Australia; the all-around talented Lithuania versus defending champs Argentina; and potentially the gold- and silver-medal favorites in Spain versus USA.

Though it’s more than pedantic to bring up the “Group of Death” cliché exhumed with each new European-style pool announcement with only two groups in Olympic play, surely the media hypesters will be on about the superiority of Group B on the men’s side. The real disappointment will surely be coming from the A side, however: Four continental champions already populate the side and a European power, i.e. Greece, Germany, Croatia, could join.

The women’s side is a bit sketchier, with only seven of the 12 teams placed, but thus far it’s Australia, Russia and South Korea in Group A, while China, Mali, New Zealand and Team USA have been placed in B. (After seeing their fourth-place performance in the Good Luck tourney, Cuba will, barring disaster, certainly be one of those five to be named later.)

Ready for at least one more China-USA match after the two in Good Luck Beijing? Hey, that’s what the home crowd goes to the Olympics for, right? To see the best in the world; when all is said and done, though, some may be hoping it hadn’t been so up close and personal…