Olympic Basketball Standings: Which Teams Will Advance to Elimination Rounds?

Men's basketball is under way at the 2012 Summer Olympics, and teams are well on their way toward advancing past the group stage and into the elimination rounds. 

The 12 teams that qualified for the tournament are split up into two groups—Group A and Group B—and the top four squads from each of the two will advance to the next round after playing each of the other five teams in the group. 

You can find the full standings here. 

So, which teams will make it through? 

Group A

Lock: United States (1-0)

Others Who Will Advance: France (1-1), Argentina (1-1) and Lithuania (1-1)

Failing to Advance: Nigeria (1-1) and Tunisia (0-1)

While Team USA isn't going to lose a game during group play, the other three favorites to advance to the elimination rounds could potentially falter enough to go home early. 

Nigeria and Tunisia are huge underdogs to advance, but an upset by either team over either France, Argentina or Lithuania could be enough to advance. 

The latter three teams are all just about equally capable of knocking each other out in an elimination game, and it's feasible that one could be swept by the others favored to advance. 

It would be a monumental upset, seeing as the lowest FIBA ranking of the teams I'm predicting to advance is France at No. 12, while Tunisia is No. 32 and Nigeria is No. 21, but it could potentially happen. 

Group B

Lock: Spain (2-0)

Near-Lock: Brazil (2-0)

Others Who Will Advance: Russia (2-0) and Australia (0-2)

Failing to Advance: Great Britain (0-2) and China (0-2)

The Spanish are the clear favorites in Group B, especially after beating China by 16 and Australia by 12 to open play. It would be a shocker if they lost before meeting the United States in the elimination rounds, so I'm going to apply the "Lock" tag here. 

Russia and Brazil are both nearly locks after cruising to 2-0 stars against the weaker competition in the group, as neither has played Spain or each other. Both would have to lose out to fail to advance, and that's only a possibility for Russia.

Brazil still has a relatively easy contest with China, while Russia has to play Brazil, Spain and Australia. Obviously, beating Brazil would do wonders for its chances.  

Then there's Australia, which is struggling without Andrew Bogut, but should pick things back up soon enough. Beating Great Britain and China is going to be key for them to advance.