Watching the Olympic Games 2012: Basketball

How it works Just two gold medals are up for grabs, with 12 teams competing in the men's and women's competitions. The teams, divided into two pools of six in the group stages, will fight it out over four 10-minute quarters. Whoever scores the most points wins Who's hot The American men have won 13 out of 17 Olympic titles with Kobe Bryant starring last time, while their women's team have not lost since 1992. In the men's do not count out 2004 champions Argentina or 2008 silver medallists Spain Home hopes Not great. Great Britain were last week granted automatic qualification for 2012 by the sport's governing body, Fiba. Even if they are, medal hopes would be slim, although Team GB's aim of getting both teams into the quarter-finals is possible The road to London 13 Mar 2011 Fiba decides on automatic qualification 31 Aug-18 Sept 2011 Men's European Basketball Championship (Eurobasket), Lithuania The stage The 12,000-capacity temporary basketball arena on the Stratford site will be used for the group stages and quarters before the action moves to the North Greenwich Arena (essentially the O2 but the company aren't sponsoring London 2012),which houses 20,000 What they say "I feel like we worked very hard to be in a position to compete" Luol Deng, GB player Did you know? 600 basketballs will be used during the competition Competition dates 28 July – 12 Aug 2012 Ticket prices Group stages £20-£115 Quarters-semis £20-150 Medal matches £45-425 Special prices are available in categories C and D in group stages Tempted to be there? You can apply for tickets between 15 March and 26 April. Visit www.tickets.london2012.com The application process for tickets for the Paralympic Games will begin on 9 September 2011, and tickets for the London 2012 Festival (part of the Cultural Olympiad) in October 2011