Everything to know ahead of U.S. women’s Olympic basketball opener vs. Japan

Name	Role	Team/Role
Cheryl Reeve	Head coach	Minnesota Lynx head coach
Mike Thibault	Assistant coach	Washington Mystics head coach
Kara Lawson	Assistant coach	Duke University head coach
Joni Taylor	Assistant coach	Texas A&M head coach

What is the U.S. women’s basketball team’s head-to-head record vs. Japan?

The U.S. and Japan have met five times in the Olympics, four of which were won by the Americans. Japan won the first-ever meeting back in 1976, but the U.S. was victorious in 1996, 2016 and twice in 2020, including a win in the gold medal game.

A refresher on how elimination works in Olympic basketball

Let’s quickly break down the group phase and knockout rounds. More info available in Basketball 101: Competition Format.

Group phase

Each team will play the other three teams in its group and will earn two points for a win, one point for a loss, and zero points for a loss by forfeit.

At the end of the group phase, the top two teams in each group will automatically advance to the quarterfinals. Additionally, the two best third-place teams will also move on to the quarterfinals. All other teams are eliminated from the competition.

In the event of a tie in the standings between two teams in the same group, head-to-head results will be used as the tiebreaker. In the event of a tie between three or more teams, there is a list of further criteria that will be used to break the tie, starting with the highest point differential in games between the tied teams.

Knockout rounds

The knockout rounds begin with eight teams in the quarterfinals. A random draw will determine the matchups for the quarterfinals, with two important caveats:

• The two highest-ranked teams will be placed in the same pot and therefore end up on opposite sides of the bracket.
• Teams from the same group can’t be drawn against each other in the quarterfinals.

From there, the tournament follows a standard single-elimination format. In the quarterfinal round, the winners advance to the semifinals and the losers are eliminated. In the semifinal round, the winners advance to the gold medal game and the losers go on to play in the bronze medal game.