Chris Denker 
1 Feb 2012 
0 comments FIBA on Tuesday concluded its visit to Venezuela with the draw for the FIBA Olympic Qualifying Tournament, to be held in Caracas from 2-8 July 2012.
12 teams will be playing for the last three spots in the Olympic Basketball Tournament, were divided into four groups of three teams.
Group A: Greece, Jordan, Puerto Rico – The loser of Greece/Puerto Rico could see Lithuania in the Quarters.
Group B: Lithuania, Nigeria, Venezuela - Lithuania is the favorite but the home team will come to play.
Group C: Dominican Republic, Korea, Russia – Wouldn’t surprise me to see two from this group advance into semi’s. DR roster littered with NBA players.
Group D: Angola, F.Y.R. of Macedonia, New Zealand - The weakest pool in my view.
Each of the 12 teams play the two other teams in their respective groups in a standard round robin format (12 games in total). The top two teams in each group progress to the Quarter-Finals as follows:
A1 v B2
B1 v A2
C1 v D2
D1 v C2
The four winning quarterfinalists qualify for the Semi-Finals:
Winner [A1 v B2] v Winner [C1 v D2] Possible Greece vs. Russia match-up, Puerto Rico could be spoiler
Winner [B1 v A2] v Winner [D1 v C2] Possible Lithuania vs. Dominican Republic match-up
The two winning semifinalists automatically qualify for the Olympic tournament, while the two losing semifinalists face-off for 12th and final Olympic spot in a winner goes to London, loser goes home match-up.
I’m going to predict Lithuania, Greece, and Dominican (as my sneaky dark horse) to advance to the Olympics. Who are your selections?
Thanks to FIBA for information leading to this post.
