Team USA is two wins away from an unprecedented World Cup five-peat, and the Americans will take a significant step toward that goal Saturday when they face Spain in the semifinals of the 2026 FIBA Women’s Basketball World Cup at Berlin Arena in Berlin, Germany.

Tipoff is scheduled for 2 p.m. ET (1 p.m. CT, 11 a.m. PT), with the winner advancing to Sunday’s gold-medal game against the victor of the other semifinal between reigning Olympic silver medalist France and tournament host Germany, also being played Saturday.

How to watch

The USA-Spain semifinal is set to air on TBS in the United States, with coverage also available via truTV in some listings. The game can be streamed on TBS.com, the TBS app, and HBO Max. Every game of the tournament is additionally available in the U.S. through FIBA’s exclusive streaming platform, Courtside 1891, which is accessible through DAZN for $11.99 a month or $44.99 annually, offering both live and on-demand access to the full World Cup schedule. Cord-cutters can also stream the broadcast through live TV services such as YouTube TV and DIRECTV, which offers a free trial for new subscribers.

Team USA’s path to the semifinals

The United States enters Saturday’s matchup riding a 30-game World Cup winning streak, extended further with four consecutive victories in Berlin. Under head coach Kara Lawson, the Americans went 3-0 in group play, opening with a 94-61 win over China before a tighter 55-52 win over Italy and a 105-64 win over Czechia. Team USA then routed Hungary 108-56 in the quarterfinals to punch its ticket to the semifinal round.

The U.S. squad is playing in its 11th consecutive World Cup semifinal, extending a winning streak in the competition that stretches back 20 years; the Americans’ last semifinal loss came against Russia in 2006. Breanna Stewart, Napheesa Collier, Jackie Young, Kahleah Copper and Chelsea Gray have anchored the starting lineup throughout the tournament, with Jackie Young leading the team in scoring at 11 points per game. Paige Bueckers, Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese have provided key production off the bench.

Clark, playing in her first World Cup, has emerged as one of the tournament’s top facilitators, ranking among the competition’s assist leaders with an average of seven per game. Stewart has also been a steady contributor, entering the semifinal averaging 9.8 points, seven rebounds and 2.8 assists across the tournament, with a cumulative line of 39 points, 28 rebounds and 11 assists through four games.

Spain’s road to Berlin

Spain reached the semifinals after going 2-1 in group play, a stretch that included an uncharacteristic upset loss to Mali, before the team rebounded with a blowout win over reigning bronze medalist Australia in the quarterfinals.

The Spanish roster features several current WNBA players, headlined by guard Iyana Martin, a 2026 first-round pick of the Portland Fire who is expected to join the league next season. Martin leads Spain in both scoring, at 16.5 points per game, and assists, averaging 3.3 per contest. She is joined on the roster by Seattle Storm rookie center Awa Fam, Toronto Tempo forward Maria Conde, and fellow Fire center Megan DiLeo.

DiLeo, who played college basketball at Iowa and won conference player of the year honors during her collegiate career, was asked ahead of Saturday’s matchup whether having Clark come off the bench for Team USA might work to Spain’s advantage. She dismissed the notion directly.

“I don’t think so,” DiLeo said. “I think she’s just a great player.”

Head-to-head history favors the Americans

Historically, the matchup has heavily favored the United States. The Americans are 11-0 all-time against Spain in women’s international competition tracked by FIBA, and the two teams met earlier this year in a World Cup qualifying game, with the U.S. winning 84-70.

Despite that lopsided history, Spain’s run through the tournament, including its dominant quarterfinal performance against Australia, suggests the team is playing with confidence heading into Saturday’s semifinal, even against a heavily favored American squad chasing its 12th overall World Cup championship and fifth consecutive title.

What’s on the line

A win Saturday would put Team USA into Sunday’s gold-medal game, held at the same Berlin Arena venue, with the third-place game also scheduled for Sunday and broadcast on TNT, truTV and HBO Max. The tournament’s other semifinal, pitting France against host nation Germany, will determine the Americans’ potential opponent in the final should the U.S. advance.

For Spain, a victory would represent one of the program’s most significant results in program history, breaking a lengthy winless streak against the United States and denying the Americans a chance at an unprecedented fifth straight World Cup crown.

Looking ahead

With four days of group and quarterfinal play now behind both squads, Saturday’s semifinal represents the biggest test yet for a U.S. team that has leaned on balanced scoring, veteran leadership from players like Stewart and Collier, and rising stars such as Clark and Bueckers coming off the bench. Fans in the United States looking to follow the action live have multiple options across cable, streaming apps and subscription services to catch the full game as it unfolds from Berlin.

Minister of state (independent charge) for information and broadcasting, environment and climate change Prakash Javadekar has been busy sorting out the various hats he’s expected to wear in this government.

He spoke to ET on the Bharatiya Janata Party government’s approach towards media, social media, media controls and much more. Edited excerpts…

In terms of communication and messaging, the BJP’s electoral campaign has been termed an object lesson in the field. How can you translate that into the governmental structure?

All communication needs of the government will be handled in our ministry through a social media hub. I am offering this service to all ministers. Their facebook, twitter and other social media outreach will be handled by the new media wing, and the social media and communication hub.

The advantage that the party saw in reaching out through all communication media has been tremendous, and it was felt that the government too use the available platforms. Therefore, this new hub will provide all the help needed by various ministers and ministries for setting up and operating their facebook pages, twitter handles and the outreach throughsocial media. Traditional media is important, of course, but social media vehicles have to be spruced up.

What are your priority areas as far as this (I&B) ministry is concerned?

We have to ensure transparency, make our vehicles more effective. We want to be accessible and accountable too. Now there is a stage three and stage four of digitisation, we will take a call on this only after taking all things into account. The issue is that digitisation increases the revenue of paid channels, but customers want fewer advertisements.

Now 11 crore new settop boxes are required, which provides a great case for indigenisation, rather than just import them. I will take it up with the finance and commerce ministers on how this could be done.

During the elections, an interview of Prime Minister Narendra Modi set off questions on the autonomy of the public broadcaster. As I&B minister, how will you deal with it?

Right off the bat, I would like to say that our commitment for press freedom, and the autonomy of public broadcast is absolute. But freedom or autonomy has its own responsibilities.

Media has the responsibility of being neutral and objective. There’s always a concern that when the government is spending so much, it must reach the public. The public broadcaster is a tool for public awareness. Having said all of this, let me categorically state that we have no plans to enforce controls on the media.

Modi has been described as a “post TV” Prime Minister, in that he reaches out to his audience or voter directly. How would you recast the role of the traditional media?

This is a lesson for everyone on how to put your point across, in the way the Prime Minister does. Minister for law and communications Ravi Shankar Prasad and I have been deputed as spokespersons for the government and we will shortly come up with a communications plan to suit everyone’s needs. This government is different from the way it approaches issues and problems.

For instance, Modiji’s design for the Cabinet. Yesterday, there were some issues related to environment and power. Piyush Goel holds the power, coal and renewable energy portfolio, I hold the environment portfolio, and between the two of us and 10 officials we sorted things which the previous government had tied up in knots in a Group of Ministers (GoM) set up. The emphasis is on synergy. For the media too, there will be things to learn from the new government and its functioning.

Anand Mahindra can’t wait to get back home from the US because all the action is happening in India with a new, stable government led by Narendra Modi in place. Hours after chairing a board meeting of Mahindra & Mahindra at midnight US time, the company’s chairman and MD spoke on Saturday to Satish John at length from Boston on his hopes and aspirations for the country. The new administration has begun well and a lot more is expected from it, he said. Excerpts:

On Modi government’s 10-point agenda.

I think it is almost brilliant to put at the head of the list the fact that bureaucrats should be encouraged to take decisions without fear. In a sense he’s gone to the heart of the problem of the paralysis. The Indian government is extraordinarily large and it is difficult to try and believe that one leader can make all the change. This is a federal system. In a large bureaucracy you cannot exercise the transformation of any situation without coopting bureaucracy.

So empowerment becomes important. It’s a good sign. If you remember, one of the major apprehensions about Modi was an autocratic style of functioning. By putting right at the top of the agenda the empowerment of the bureaucracy I think one has to appreciate and admit that it is definitely not the act of an autocrat.

On disbanding ministerial groups.

Without making much heavy weather of it, he’s been a case study for business schools on how to exercise leadership and have an impact from day one in the new job. He’s setting a clear agenda and is making a clear promise of making a measurement of progress made against that clear agenda. For example, making an agenda for 100 days will make it clear what the matrix would be for measuring success of that agenda. It is important that every day some incremental progress is made towards that agenda and that progress is communicated transparently. He has got his team ready, which is a focused team. To me, every decision needn’t be a big-bang reform but a signal of proactive decision-making and removal of red tape and bureaucracy. And a promise of even speedier decision-making in the future.

On the government’s immediate priorities.

Back in the 1980s, I had written a column headlined ‘Roads to Nowhere’. At that time we were not building enough roads. (Among) America’s competitive advantages happen to be its highways and its transportation network. Those are like blood vessels to the economy and they create job opportunities. Therefore, in a funny sense, the best thing anyone can do to create an inclusive economy is ironically through building roads, because access to markets or the lack of access to markets is one of the most discriminatory things one can do to the poor, especially to the rural poor. It’s not a point that we automatically think of but roads are a mechanism to create inclusiveness in the economy. So, I think, the faster he does that the better for the economy. There is huge economic data to show that roads (give) a bigger boost to rural income than even irrigation. It will help power dual income for families and will allow a kind of diversity from dependence on agriculture which creates productivity.

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On India-US ties.

I’ve been here (in the US) for quite a while now. The Indian elections have generated enormous interest. Most of the diplomatic and political pundits are now urging the leadership in Washington not to miss out on what they feel is the diplomatic opportunity for the US in reaching out to and rebuilding a very strong relationship with India. They feel US has lost ground because of the visa controversy and that they should now rediscover the ground and build a strong relationship.

There is a feeling that both Japan and China have both stolen a march on building this kind of relationship with India. There is going to be, in my opinion, a strong effort from decision-makers here to reach out to the prime minister and his colleagues to rebuild the relationship.

On the perception that the new government will tilt more toward the east — Japan, China, South Korea.

There has been significant interest shown by Japan. It is a country with a liquidity overhang and an investment surplus. Modi is well aware of that. Why Japanese investors have been holding back is because they did not perceive any of the promises we’ve given to be gaining traction.

In the area of construction and large industrial projects, they can take pole position in large projects here. That being said, everybody speculated what the position of the PM and the Cabinet would be and the PM is his own man. My contention is that our PM is a practical man and he knows that any kind of vindictiveness has no role in foreign policy.

I think his whole objective is to enhance India’s economic health and through that gain what should be India’s rightful role in the world. The fact that we are the world’s largest democracy and we are all aware that power and a role in global affairs for a nation comes from economic strength. I think, in his own way and at the right time, he will respond positively when the correct signals are sent out from the US administration.

On FDI in defence

We have been consistent from the time we entered into JVs with foreign companies. We have not changed our stance. Right from the beginning we have been representing to the government that it is a positive step to allow at least 49% investment through the automatic route. Because it encourages the foreign partner to deploy the technology into the JV. Otherwise, there is wariness on their part to provide 100% support to the joint venture. So if you really want the best technology to be manufactured here, then (it should be) a minimum of 49% stake, which we have always advocated.

On Mahindra’s investments plans.

We have never shied away from making investments. Even during downcycles, we never stopped our investments. We invested in the Chakan automotive plant when the economy was down; we also invested in the tractor plant in Zaheerabad when the tractor market was witnessing a downcycle. When the market improved for tractors we were able to ramp up our output. We always have a long-term view of the economy. We have consistently been investing. In defence, for example, if the government starts buying again for the much-needed upgrade then we’ll certainly make the investments. Pawan (Goenka) has gone on record to say that we are considering a Rs 4,000-crore investment, which is independent of the new developments. It was something we were going to do.

The central government has complete power with a clear mandate, but directives from the Centre have to be executed well at the state level. So, there are many things that are still not in Modi’s hands, says Raamdeo Agrawal, Joint Managing Director, Motilal Oswal Financial Services in an interview with Narendra Nathan and Sanket Dhanorkar.

Are we looking at a multi-year bull run?

I think the market has not yet priced in the full potential of the economy. For the first time, a true nationalist has come to power with a clear majority. There is a new-found energy across the nation. My sense is that the market has not yet understood the difference between 300-plus seats for NDA and 272-plus seats for BJP alone. Look at how the cabinet posts have been assigned — BJP allies have got limited posts and their negotiating power is diminished. Complete power is in the hands of the government. The political scenario is drastically different now. The economy is on the cusp of a historical positive change.

It is the same vehicle, but the driver has changed. It is now being steered by a formula-one driver. So, the acceleration will be dramatic. It will become visible very quickly. Today we are growing at 4.5 per cent. Growth is likely to pick up pace rapidly in the next few years. A lot of things will happen in five years. It will be interesting to see the index level at that time. In the process, investors will make tons of money, because the market will discount that growth two years in advance. It will not wait for the fifth year. If all domestic and global factors align, markets will go through the roof.

Are there challenges to the fragile economic recovery?

The current optimism is because a major variable — the shambolic political setup — has been corrected. There is no doubt that the new government has been fully empowered in this election; the mandate has been given to an extremely competent individual. Right now, everybody is bullish. But one must have tempered expectations. Finally, directives from the Centre have to be executed well at the state level. Otherwise it will be a waste. There are many things that are still not in Modi’s hands.

A lot of other factors will also play a role. Good monsoons, favourable global environment, peaceful borders, etc., can change the entire scenario. But, only time will tell how many stars will align. So, a lot will depend on external factors. I am also keenly watching how the new government tackles inflation, which is just a symptom of a much deeper problem somewhere else. The government has to address supply-side bottlenecks. A weak currency cannot make a strong country. That is why, inflation must go down. It will be the beginning of development, investments, and so on.

The rally, so far, has been driven by hope. When will fundamentals take over?

News headlines, and making money are two entirely different things. We should not get carried away by the headlines. The focus must be on who will actually make money. In most cases, it will be a company which is making money right now. Very rarely will a company that is broke today make money tomorrow, unless there is a complete change in business dynamics. Today, we do not have anything to go by. So, wherever there are anomalies in the economy, these will come back to normal levels. Right now, it is only about the promise of a better tomorrow. Some of these promises will have to take shape in the budget.

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What should be the first priority for the new government?

India has to become much more business friendly. Finally, the country needs to create jobs for its rising young population. Who will create these jobs? More than the government, it is the businesses which will create jobs. Businesses can create jobs only if the business environment is friendly. They also cannot sustain growth without creating jobs. So, the government has to become business friendly. All hurdles should be removed. We need businesses to take more risks as it will result in more jobs.

Will mid-cap stocks continue to perform better than large-caps for now?

It really depends on the company. Mid-caps were lagging for quite some time; smallcaps even more. Eventually it has to converge. Large-caps are now looking highly priced. Investor appetite is limited at these levels. Most of the action is in the low-quality, low-priced segment. Smaller investors are clearly buying low-quality stuff, thinking that the price is low. But, even if it moves into high valuation territory, low quality will remain so. This is where the entire game ends. Sure, high quality stocks are expensive now. But that doesn’t mean you should have junk in your portfolio. If you find quality at a reasonable price, buy with modest expectations. Such names are few and far between. But, even if you get 3-4 such ideas over one year, you can make money. The challenge is to have patience and hold on to the investment. Filling with junk will be a disaster, but if it works, you get a multi-bagger. Investors in high quality may underperform in a rallying market, but will emerge better off over an entire cycle.

Can we expect an earnings upgrade anytime soon?

A 12-15 per cent earnings upgrade is definitely possible this year. As the economy recovers, sectors, such as cement, steel and automobiles, will pick up pace. Oil & gas can also contribute to earnings growth. Right now corporate profits are contributing around 4 per cent to the GDP, which is near the bottom of the band. At the peak of a cycle, this can go upto 7-8 per cent. Assuming 13-14 per cent nominal growth in GDP, it will double in rupee term to Rs 220 trillion in next six years. Now the question is whether the current profit of Rs 4 trillion will move up to Rs 8 trillion or Rs 16 trillion. If it maintains the current ratio, it will go to Rs 8 trillion. If it touches the upper end of the band, it will go to Rs 16 trillion. If this happens and the PE multiple remains the same, the market will go up four times. Profits will zoom the moment the economy moves from 5-6 per cent to 8-9 per cent growth. That is why there is a potential for the market to go up to the stratospheric levels from here.