The top two teams in the world rankings will meet earlier than expected after both teams failed to win their pool play groups.
SAITAMA, Japan — The U.S. and Spain played for Olympic men’s basketball gold in 2008 and 2012, then in the semifinals in 2016. And at the Tokyo Games, the top teams in the FIBA world rankings will meet again – just earlier than has been the norm. The three-time reigning Olympic champion Americans will face reigning World Cup champion Spain in the quarterfinals on Tuesday, a matchup of teams that finished second in their respective groups. Spain fell outside of the seeded pool, and knew it had exposed itself to a potential matchup with the U.S., by losing its group-play finale to Slovenia on Sunday. About an hour later, when FIBA held the Olympic draw, the matchup was set. “If you’re going to get that gold medal, you’re going to beat everybody,” Spain center Marc Gasol said. “At that point, it doesn’t matter, the order.” The U.S. is 16-2 against Spain in Olympic or World Cup competition – yet recent matchups haven’t exactly been runaways. The Americans won 82-76 in the 2016 Olympic semifinals,107-100 in the 2012 gold-medal game at London, and 118-107 in the gold-medal matchup at Beijing in 2008. “This Olympics is just going to get better as far as basketball is concerned, because the teams are all pretty passionate and very talented and have a lot of individual players that people will enjoy on TV,” U.
