Of the two Olympic basketball groups in Beijing, Group A is filled with teams that are more equally matched. Outside of Iran, who are the definite underdogs in the whole tournament, the remaining five teams, Argentina, Australia, Croatia, Lithuania and Russia, each have a good chance of advancing to the quarter-finals.

In other words, we are basically looking at four available quarter-final spots for five teams. Group A features strong competitors in defending Olympic Gold medalists Argentina, Oceania champions Australia, Croatia, Lithuania, and 2007 Eurobasket champs Russia.

Argentina are the slight favorites in this group as they bring back the majority of their core team from 2004. I would position Argentina just ahead of Lithuania, Russia, and Croatia with Australia being ranked fifth in the group. Croatia aren't the most well-known, but are the definite dark horses of this group. This will get very interesting.

ARGENTINA: Roster - Carlos Delfino, Manu Ginobili, Román González, Juan Gutiérrez, Leonardo Gutiérrez, Federico Kammerichs, Andrés Nocioni, Fabricio Oberto, Antonio Porta, Pablo Prigioni, Paolo Quinteros, Luis Scola.

Oddly enough, the gold medalists from the 2004 Athens Games are going to have to re-prove themselves in this tournament. With the focus on Team USA, Spain, and Greece, everyone seems to be overlooking the perennial contenders this time around.

In the same vein, everyone is looking to unseat the defending champions. “There’s no surprise factor this time,” said center Fabricio Oberto. “We’re up against the wall, because everyone knows they’re playing against the Olympic champions. You can’t just show off your gold medal and expect to win.”

Admittedly, there are two main issues facing Argentina: Firstly, they are without their veteran point guard Pepe Sanchez, who retired from international play, and secondly, what about worn-out Manu Ginobili and his jammed ankle? They’ll also have to deal with the loss of key sub Walter Herrmann, who pulled out of the tournament early on.

On the bright side, the Argentinians have a pretty good replacement for Pepe. In Pablo Prigioni, they have one the world’s great playermakers. The 31-year-old was voted ACB’s best base player (point guard) in 2007 and led the 2007 Tournament of Americas in assists at 6.3. The question is, how will Quinteros and Porta do as a back-up?

LITHUANIA: Roster - Linas Kleiza, Sarunas Jasikevicius, Simas Jasaitis, Robertas Javtokas, Rimantas Kaukėnas, Darjuš Lavrinovič, Kšyštof Lavrinovič, Mindaugas Lukauskis, Jonas Mačiulis, Marius Prekevičius, Ramunas Siskauskas, Darius Songaila

The key to their team are four players: Jasikevicius, Kaukenas, Siskauskas and Javtokas. If the Lithuanians hope to medal, Saras has to to be his magical self, Siskauskas has to live up to his billing, Kaukenas must be consistent and Javtokas must be an interior force rebounding.

RUSSIA: Roster - Sergei Bykov, Vitaly Fridzon, J.R. Holden, Victor Keyru, Viktor Khryapa, Andrei Kirilenko, Sergey Monya, Nikita Morgunov, Zakhar Pashutin, Petr Samoylenko, Aleksey Savrasenko, Andrey Vorontsevich

The 2007 Eurobasket surprise champions are led by the do-it-all Andrei Kirilenko, who was named Eurobasket MVP. Fortunately, it looks as though key contributor Victor Khryapa will make it back from an ankle injury. Khryapa will take the spot of former Kansas center Sasha Kaun on their roster and will add another dimension to Russia’s frontline versatility. Russia have one of the better tournament play-makers in American-born, Russian-naturalized JR Holden, but need to remain consistent and unflustered throughout the game.

The 6ft 11in Nikita Morgunov is solid in the Russian frontcourt, and when I say solid I mean it in a good way, but it also means he has slow feet and is not much of a consistent offensive threat.

CROATIA: Roster - Marko Banić, Stanko Barać, Davor Kus, Krešimir Lončar, Sandro Nicević, Zoran Planinić, Marko Popović, Nikola Prkačin, Marin Rozić, Damjan Rudež, Marko Tomas, Roko Ukić

Since winning silver in 1992, the Croatians haven’t been able to qualify a team in the last two Olympics despite having some of the more talented players in Europe. They were able to qualify by going unbeaten in this year’s Pre-Olympic World Qualifiers with a 4-0 record, thanks to efficient performances of rising European player Marko Tomas, who averaged 17 points on high percentages.

Team Croatia have the right amount of talent, chemistry, defense, and aggressiveness to move on to the next round. And the 2008 National Team bring back nine of the 12 players that defeated Spain in Eurobasket 2007.

AUSTRALIA: Roster - David Andersen, Chris Anstey, David Barlow, Andrew Bogut, CJ Bruton, Joe Ingles, Patrick Mills, Brad Newley, Matt Nielsen, Shawn Redhage, Glen Saville, Mark Worthington

Qualifying through the Oceania region, the Aussies are bringing back five players from the 2004 team (Andersen, Bogut, Bruton, Neilsen, and Saville) and they will all play a big role in the 2008 team.

The Aussies have one of the best frontcourts in the tournament with great size in 6ft 11in David Andersen, 7ft Chris Anstey, 6ft 10in Matt Nielsen, and 7ft Andrew Bogut, who recently rejoined the team after finalising his $76m multi-year contract with the Milwaukee Bucks.

The game plan for Australia to be successful is team chemistry and effort, rebounding, defense or what Bogut likes to say: “We’re going to have to junk the game up.”

IRAN: Roster - Hamed Afagh, Amir Amini, Samad Nikkhah Bahrami, Javad Davari, Saeid Davarpanah, Ali Doraghi, Hamed Haddadi, Mehdi Kamrani, Mousa Nabipour, Oshin Sahakian, Hamed Sohrabnejad, Iman Zandi

The keyword for Iran is “experience”.  If being the underdogs in this year’s Olympics wasn’t going to be enough already, Iran will compete with heavy hearts after they lost their best player, Aidin Bahrami, to a car accident a couple months after winning the Asian Championships in 2007.

Additionally, Iran may have lost their key player for the games, Hamed Ehadadi, as he went down with an ankle injury playing a pre-Olympic game against China on August 1. Haddadi is a promising 7ft 2in, 254lb center who is also Iran’s leading scorer, rebounder and shot-blocker. Whether Ehadadi will be ready in time for the games is still in question as of this post.

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