Once again the Soviets guaranteed victory, and even mocked the Americans with hints that they had the best professional players while the US had school children.
The 1976 Olympic games also marked the first time that there was a women's tournament.
The tournament was set up similar to the past years, but with fewer teams - 12 compared to 16. The USSR, USA, Cuba all got bids and Canada got a bid as the host as well. Oceania, Asia and Africa each got a team, the Americas got 2 teams and Europe got 3. China dropped out of the tournament and was replaced by Japan. Egypt and several other African countries boycotted the games. Egypt was not replaced in the tournament.
Each group had 6 teams and would play each other once and the top two teams advanced to the semi finals.
The Americans first game was against Italy, who put up a fight against the US but fell 106-86.
The US nearly lost its second game to Puerto Rico. Puerto Rico lead for a good portion of the game and had a four point lead with less than a minute left. But the US scored 6 straight points to escape with a 95-94 victory.
Yugoslavia was another team that thought they could beat the US, and claimed they could. The US however, took no chances and blew them out early and eventually won 112-93.
Because Egypt withdrew and was not replaced, the fourth game for the US was won by forfeit. officially the US got a 2-0 win.
The last game of Group play was vs Czechoslovakia, and while the Czechs gave the US some trouble the US won 81-76 in a game thats score was closer than the actual game was.
The US finished a top Group B with a 5-0 record, followed by Yugoslavia at 4-1. The USSR finished group A 7-0 and Canada finished second. The forfiet vs Egypt ended up being an issue as the Soviets had a larger point differential than the Americans and got the #1 seed.
Not being the top seed did not really matter as the USA crushed the home Canadian team 95-77. The Soviets however, struggled vs Yugoslavia before taking an 84-82 lead late in the fourt quarter. The Yugoslavians than held the Soviets scoreless and scored 7 straight points for their second major upset of the USSR in the last 3 Olympic games.
The US faced the Yugoslavian team in the gold medal game and might light work of them winning 95-74 and recapturing the gold medal. The Soviets pounded Canada 100-72 for the gold medal.
The USSR got back at the US in the womens tournament by smashing the USA women by 35, which is still the worst loss in American basketball history - men or womens.
Every member of Team USA would go on to play in the NBA.
Adrian Dantley had the best career of any member of team USA. He would go on to be a star player, mostly with the Utah Jazz, and lead the NBA twice in scoring and eventually make the hall-of-fame.
Like Dantley, Walter Davis would be a multi-time all-star - mostly with the Phoenix Suns and Denver Nuggets. He is sometimes mentioned as one of the best players not in the hall-of-fame.
The rest of team USA had solid careers but not great careers. Mitch Kupchak became famous as the Los Angeles Lakers general manager who got them multiple times in the 2000s. Ernie Grunfeld also ended up in the front office.
