August 8, 2016
The 2016 Rio Olympics have officially began and women’s basketball started their preliminary games Saturday morning. Teams from Group A and Group B will battle it out to determine which eight teams will advance to the quarterfinals which begin August 16th. The preliminaries are grueling as teams have to play back to back games.
There has been clear separation from the rest of the field by the United States as they have been completely dominant in their first two games. First defeating Senegal 121-56 and winning game two against Spain 103-63; a 52.5 point winning margin! Another team who surprisingly sits atop of their group is Japan who have won both of their games in convincing fashion. They started the tournament by defeating Belarus 77-73 followed by an impressive win against the Brazilian hosts 82-66. Australia, who is ranked second in the world by FIBA just behind the U.S. are also undefeated as they defeated both Brazil and Turkey so far. Canada have attracted some attention after winning against China and Serbia. France has also shown well as they too have not lost a game. Most disappointing has been Belarus and Olympic host’s Brazil who both have yet to win a game. Belarus lost a heart-breaker on a last second basket against France. Brazil lost to both Australia and Japan by double figures. Serbia who fields a team with a few WNBA players still haven’t won a game as Canada handed them their second loss earlier today. China and Spain have both won a game a piece while Turkey and Senegal are in search of win number one.
Below are the current standings after games played on 8/8. Games continue tomorrow as Australia takes on France, Brazil faces Belarus, and Turkey will battle Japan. The U.S. will be back in action on Wednesday as they take on Serbia at 1:30pm.
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