Olympics men’s basketball results, August 15: Quarterfinals set

Looking at the Olympics men’s basketball results from Monday, August 15 after the three games that set the quarterfinals for the next round

It’s now been over a week since the Olympics men’s basketball competition got underway. On Monday, August 15, though, the preliminary round finally came to an end. There were three games left to be played, all out of Group B. More importantly for the drama of the day, though, all six teams were still mathematically alive with the potential to advance to the quarterfinals.

The host nation Brazil started out the day against Nigeria and were played close early on by the opposing team. Marcelo Huertas and Leandro Barbosa (among others) both shockingly started playing tight defense on the outside and limiting what Nigeria likes to do most—hoist up shots from deep. In doing so, they effectively shut down anything and everything the Nigerians wanted to do. In a wholly unsurprising effort, it was Brazil notching the win and staying alive for the time being.

Another relatively unexciting blowout followed despite two more evenly matched teams facing off in Spain and Argentina. Since losing their opening two games, someone lit a fire under Spain and that’s meant terrible news for their opponents. Rudy Fernandez (yes, that one—he’s still playing) was huge alongside Pau Gasol and the Argentinians didn’t even know what hit them right in the mouth in the massive victory.

Lithuania and Croatia capped off the night in a game between teams trying to garner any type of momentum. After the Lithuanians jumped out to an early lead, though, Croatia turned on the jets. Dario Saric continued to make Philadelphia 76ers fans salivate profusely as he tore up their opponents on Monday. That pushed them ahead in the second quarter and the Croatians hung on for the win.

With these matchups over, the quarterfinals in Olympics men’s basketball are set. Here’s a look at the matchups and sides of the bracket:

Those are all of the titans in this tournament, which should promise some fantastic basketball yet to come. The quarterfinals begin on Wednesday.