Basketball at the 2012 Summer Olympics

Basketball made its eighteenth Olympic appearance as an official medal sport at the 2012 Summer Games in London. The competition ran from 28 July to 12 August.

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Early matches and the women’s quarterfinals took place at the Basketball Arena in Olympic Park, which could hold up to 12,000 spectators. The men’s knockout rounds and the women’s games from the semifinals onward were held at the North Greenwich Arena (the O2 Arena). Both the United States men’s and women’s teams repeated as Olympic champions, successfully defending their titles from 2008.

Two venues in London hosted the tournaments: the North Greenwich Arena (the O2 Arena) and the Basketball Arena in Olympic Park at Stratford. The North Greenwich Arena staged the men’s knockout stages and the women’s semifinals and finals, while the Basketball Arena hosted the preliminary rounds and the women’s quarterfinals.

Qualification

Each National Olympic Committee could enter one men’s team and one women’s team, each with up to 12 players.

Host

Initially, basketball was the only team sport where the host country did not automatically qualify a team. This was because Great Britain’s basketball teams did not exist until 2006, and FIBA worried about their future after 2012 and their likely lack of competitiveness. However, at a meeting in Lyon, France, on 13 March 2011, FIBA’s executive board agreed to let the British teams enter automatically.

Competition format

Twelve qualified nations were drawn into two groups of six teams. Each game result awarded points. If a team had fewer than two players available on the court, or could not present five players at the start of a game, or its actions prevented play from resuming, it forfeited.

Tiebreaking criteria, applied in order, were: head-to-head records among tied teams, goal average in those games, goal average in all games, points scored, and drawing of lots. The top four teams in each group advanced to a single-elimination knockout stage. Semifinal winners played for gold; losers played for bronze.

The men’s group draw took place on 30 April 2012, with teams listed by their FIBA World Rankings before the tournament. The women’s group draw also occurred on 30 April 2012, with teams ranked similarly.

FIBA named 30 referees to officiate the games.