FIBA Men’s World Cup Draw And Preliminary Round Schedule Announced*
2019 FIBA World Cup for Men ScheduleFIBA (International Basketball Federation) conducted its draw for the 2019 FIBA World Cup for Men today in Shenzhen, China, and announced the composition of the eight, four-team preliminary round groups, and the preliminary round game schedule. The 2019 FIBA World Cup competition has been expanded from 16 to 32 teams and will be held Aug. 31-Sept. 15 in eight cities in China.
Two-time defending World Cup champion and FIBA’s No. 1 world ranked United States was drawn into Group E and will play its first round games in Shanghai. Also drawn into Group E were FIBA’s No. 17 ranked Turkey, No. 24 Czech Republic and No. 48 Japan.
The USA will play Czech Republic on Sept. 1, Turkey on Sept. 3 and Japan on Sept. 5.
The seven other preliminary round groups are as follows:
Group A, playing in Beijing - China, Côte d'Ivoire, Poland and Venezuela
Group B, playing in Wuhan - Argentina, Nigeria, South Korea and Russia
Group C, playing in Guangzhou - Iran, Puerto Rico, Spain and Tunisia
Group D, playing in Foshan - Angola, Italy, Philippines and Serbia
Group F, playing in Nanjing - Brazil, Greece, Montenegro and New Zealand
Group G, playing in Shenzhen - Dominican Republic, France, Germany and Jordan
Group H, playing in Dongguan - Australia, Canada, Lithuania and Senegal
"It’s exciting to learn the makeup of our preliminary round pool and to know we will be playing our first three World Cup games in Shanghai," said USA and head coach Gregg Popovich. "I think all of the pools are well balanced and I know very well there are many national teams who have a legitimate shot of winning the 2019 World Cup. Our group, Group E, features Czech Republic, Japan and Turkey, so we’ll face three well coached teams and a variety of playing styles. Selecting and preparing the USA team in a short amount of time will be a challenge and repeating as gold medalists for a third straight FIBA World Cup is something everyone associated with the USA team will embrace.”
Following competition of the round-robin first round games, the top two finishing teams from each group will qualify for the second round, while the bottom two teams from each group will play the classification round for places 17-32. Second round games are scheduled to be held Sept. 6-9 and the results of the three games from the first round carry over to the second round standings.
The second round will feature four groups - Group I will consist of A1, A2, B1 and B2; Group J will feature C1, C2, D1 and D2; Group K will consist of E1, E2, F1 and F2; and Group L will include G1, G2, H1 and H2. Second round play will be held in Foshan, Nanjing, Shenzhen and Wuhan.
The top two finishing teams from each second round group will qualify for the quarterfinals, and the bottom two teams from each second round group are eliminated and ranked in places 9-16 according to the Official Basketball Rules. The quarterfinals action will be held in Dongguan and Shanghai on Sept. 10-11.
Semifinals and the gold and bronze medal game are slated to be held in Beijing on Sept. 13 and Sept. 15, respectively.
The 32-team 2019 FIBA Basketball World Cup competition will be held Aug. 31-Sept. 15 in China. Eight cities will host World Cup games - Beijing, Foshan, Wuhan, Shenzhen, Dongguan, Nanjing, Shanghai and Guangzhou.
https://www.usab.com/news-events/news/2019/03/mwc-draw.aspx