The best basketball teams in the world now know their opponents in this year’s Paris Olympics Games after the groups were determined in the Olympic Basketball Tournament Draw on Tuesday at the Patrick Baumann House of Basketball in Mies, Switzerland.
A total of 12 nations will compete in the Men's Olympic Basketball Tournament in Paris, which is scheduled to run from July 27 to August 10. There are currently eight national teams from five different continents that have already qualified either as the host nation or based on their respective results at the 2023 FIBA Basketball World Cup.
The remaining four tickets will be punched by the winners of the FIBA Olympic Qualifying Tournaments (OQTs) that will be held between July 2 and 7 in Piraeus (Greece), Riga (Latvia), San Juan (Puerto Rico) and Valencia (Spain).
Aiming to win their fifth-straight Olympic Basketball gold medal, undisputed favorite Team USA is slated to be in Group C along with 2016 silver medallists Serbia, Africa’s best finishing team in the 2023 FIBA World Cup South Sudan, and the winner of the OQT in Puerto Rico.
Host nation France was drawn into Group B with FIBA World Champions Germany, Asia’s best-finishing team in the 2023 FIBA World Cup Japan, and thewinner of the OQT in Latvia.
Finally, 2021 bronze medallists Australia, 2023 FIBA World Cup bronze medallists Canada, and the winners of the OQTs in Greece and Spain are grouped in Group A.
Women’s basketball legend Penny Taylor and NBA legend Carmelo Anthony helped in administering the draw.
The Olympic Basketball Tournament Draw had the teams divided into four pots based on the FIBA World Ranking. In each of the final three groups drawn, there was a minimum of two and a maximum of three teams from Europe. For Africa, the Americas, Asia and Oceania, there had to be no more than one team per continent in each group.
You can watch the full draw below: