By Eurohoops team/ info@eurohoops.net
Every top athlete in the World is getting ready for the Paris Olympics, however, there’s still one sport in which the qualifiers have not yet decided.
The four winners of the 2024 FIBA men’s Olympic Qualifying Tournaments (OQTs) will take the last four spots in the men’s basketball tournament.
Those tournaments are set to run from July 2-7 in Greece, Latvia, Puerto Rico, and Spain and are a big deal. Why? Let us explain starting with the most usual question…
Where can I see all the action?
Thank you for asking this. You can check your local television rights holders all over the world, but you can also do a very simple thing.
All games can be live-streamed on your devices so you can see them live and on-demand whenever you feel like it.
The first phase will begin on July 2 and conclude on July 4. The top two teams in the standings of each group advance to the Final Phase, which will take place on July 6.
The teams from Groups A and B will cross over and face each other in the Semi-Finals (1stA-2ndB, 2ndA-1stB) on July 6, with the Final following on July 7. Only the winners of four tournaments will advance to the 2024 Paris Olympic Tournament.
Why qualification games are played so late in the season?
While most other Olympic sport have set their qualifiers earlier – even women’s basketball – men’s basketball has opted for this version of qualifiers, which involves a total of 24 teams.
This seems actually as an extended round of the main Olympic tournament, giving the chance to teams from all over the world depending on this classification in the recent FIBA World Cup to get a spot in the Olympics. That’s why the games are played just before the Olympics. It was the best way to get all the biggest stars involved if they were not yet qualified.
Stars? Who is competing in those games?
The main attractions are of course Slovenia’s Luka Doncic and Greece’s Giannis Antetokounmpo.
In total the games competing in the tournaments are the following:
OQT Greece
Group A: Slovenia, New Zealand, Croatia
Group B: Egypt, Greece, Dominican Republic
OQT Latvia
Group A: Georgia, Philippines, Latvia
Group B: Brazil, Cameroon, Montenegro
OQT Puerto Rico
Group A: Mexico, Ivory Coast, Lithuania
Group B: Italy, Puerto Rico, Bahrain
OQT Spain
Group A: Lebanon, Angola, Spain
Group B: Finland, Poland, Bahamas
Each OQT has six teams divided into two groups of three and the two top teams of each group will compete in the semifinals and then in the final of each tournament.
The winners of each OQT will join the eight teams already qualified for Paris 2024 which are the following:
- France
- USA
- Canada
- Australia
- South Sudan
- Japan
- Serbia
- Germany
As you can understand, ultimately some of the big names will be out of the Olympics simply because very few teams compete in the final tournament, just 12 in total.
Lithuanian Domantas Sabonis, Montenegro’s Nikola Vucevic, Buddy Hield, Eric Gordon, and DeAndre Ayton for the Bahamas, Poland’s Jeremy Sochan, and Croatia’s Ivica Zubac are some of the stars who will shine in the tournament.
Notable absences will be recently crowned NBA champions Kristaps Porzingis (Latvia) and Al Horford (Dominican Republic), Finland’s Lauri Markkanen, while the Dominicans are also missing Karl Anthony-Towns.
So follow and watch all the action of the Olympics qualifiers with Courtside1891 on DAZN and enjoy the biggest stars of the basketball world taking on each other on the way to a spot for Paris.