Friday, July 06, 2012

2012 FIBA Men's Olympic Qualifying Tourney In Quarters

The 2012 FIBA Men's Olympic Qualifying Tournament being contested in Caracas, Venezuela is in the knockout stage. 

The twelve teams that started the tournament been whittled down to the eight teams still left with a chance to grab the last three spots for the London Games men's basketball tournament..

To the chagrin of the local fans Venezuela wasn't one of them.    They were in the closely contested Group B in which all three teams finished group play with 1-1 records, but Lithuania and Nigeria advanced thanks to +12 and +4 point differentials. 

The same thing happened in Group D with Macedonia and Angola advancing after the tiebreakers were applied.

In today's quarterfinals Group A winner Greece will face Group B runner up Nigeria and Group C winner Russia will take on Group D runner up Angola.   In the other bracket Group B winner Lithuania will face Group A runner up Puerto Rico and Group D winner Macedonia will face Group C runner up Dominican Republic      

Winners move on to the semifinals on July 7, and the winners of those semifinal games get the first two London Olympic tournament spots.  The semifinal losers will play July 8 for the final Olympic spot 

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