Yeah we play Jordan at 4:40am tomorrow, but unlike yesterday I won't be watching, because we have already won the group and Jordan has already been eliminated. Greece and NZL will play at 8:40am, winner moves on, loser eliminated - from what I saw, I think Greece wins easily. I expect the USA to rest some players vs Jordan (with a roster of 12 you can't really do that, but you can give many fewer minutes to your starters).
The second round is an interesting format. Starting Friday morning, we will be in a new group together with our own group's runner-up (our result against them carries through), and Group D's top 2 teams (Lithuania and Montenegro). And so we play 2 more games, against those two, with our win over Greece or NZL counting in this group. So realistically, a first-round group runner-up can only advance out of the second round by beating
both of the other group's top-2 (and conversely, a first-round group winner can generally only fail to advance by losing both of those crossover games). USA vs Montenegro will be Friday morning, and USA vs Lithuania will be Sunday morning; times haven't yet been announced. Top 2 in this second-round group go to the Quarterfinals.
In other tournament news from the first round:
- Somehow the Dominican Republic has won Group A, over co-hosts Philippines (the fightin' Jordan Clarksons), Angola, and also over Italy, who had beat them in Olympic qualifiers. Italy will advance as runner-up, but I may have overrated their roster, or just underrated Karl-Anthony Towns. DR would really have been contenders if Al Horford had come along for the ride.
- In Group B, South Sudan got a win over China, which economically and politically is just nuts. Sports! And it was by 20 points too, no joke. However, Puerto Rico is likely to go through ahead of South Sudan unless the latter can somehow beat group leaders (and tournament dark horse) Serbia, ranked #6.
- Group E was dramatic, with co-hosts Japan getting their first-ever competitive win over a European team by beating Finland, a game involving a huge comeback and where the aftermath left the Japanese squad in tears of joy. However, Australia (World #3) and Germany (#11) did as-expected, and will advance from the group. The real surprise was Germany's 85-82 win over Australia on Sunday.
- Australia can likely feel good about their chances of moving through the second round, though, as the likeliest to advance out of Group F are Slovenia (Luka Doncic SC) and Georgia - the country. Australia beating Slovenia (which would make the Slovenia-Germany game a loser-goes-home affair) will be hard, but certainly possible for this loaded Australian roster.
- Spain has predictably won Group G, but Ivory Coast will get a shot (at the same time as the USA match tomorrow) to knock off Brazil and advance at their expense. Unlikely though that may be.
- Group H had the giant-killing of the first round, with losses to Canada (expected) and Latvia (very unexpected) sinking the 5th-ranked France squad, which only 4 years ago was the team who knocked out the United States and took home the bronze. France gave such a Gallic shrug about this tournament that they only beat Lebanon this morning by 6. Wembanyama is really going to have to knock some heads, or they're going to get embarrassed at their home Olympics next summer.