Has Team USA Men’s basketball ever missed the semifinals at the Olympics?

Another blowout and another step close to another gold medal. Team USA may have moved from Lille to Paris for their quarterfinal game against Brazil, but that was about the only difference between Tuesday’s game and the first three games they played in Group Stages. They cruised through Serbia, South Sudan and Puerto Rico before crushing Brazil and they are back in the semis for the 10th straight Olympics.

A century of dominance

Few sports have been dominated by one country as much as basketball has been dominated by the Americans. Since basketball was introduced to the Olympics back in 1936 Team USA has dominated the field winning 14 of the 17 gold medals dating back to the Berlin games 88 years ago.

They have been a staple of the tournament, and a gold medal regular even before Michael Jordan and the rest of the Dream Team took Barcelona, and the world, by storm in the 1992 Olympics. Team USA won the first seven gold medals in the Men’s 5x5 basketball tournament from 1936 to 1968 (the 1940 and 1944 games were cancelled due to World War 2).

The first year Team USA won anything other than gold in men’s basketball was in 1972 when the Soviets beat the Americans in a controversial ending in which the United States lost on a buzzer beater after the final three seconds of the game was replayed three times. Team USA didn’t accepted their silver medals after the loss, and still haven’t to this day. Since then the team has tasted defeat a couple times, but they have never missed a semifinal in men’s basketball.

A boycott in Moscow

The only time Team USA wasn’t in the semifinal of the men’s basketball tournament was back in 1980 in the Summer Games in Moscow. That year the entire United States Olympic Committee decided to boycott they the games because of the Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan. Yugoslavia went on to win gold that year, beating Italy in the final match and leaving the Soviets with bronze after beating Spain.

Since then the Americans have made it to 10 straight semifinals, although they missed the gold medal match in two of those years. In 1988 the Soviets once again beat the United States in the semifinals, and went on to win the gold. That would the final year that NBA players were prohibited to play at the Summer Games. The Dream Team would bring the gold back to the cradle of basketball in 1992, but 12 years later Team USA would lose to Argentina in the semifinals from Athens and settle for bronze.

Since then the Americans have won four straight gold medals and at the moment it doesn’t look like anyone can knock off this super team that was constructed to bring basketball glory back to the country that invented the sport. Team USA is back in the semifinals and will take on Serbia for a spot in the gold medal match.