By TIM REYNOLDS AP Basketball Writer
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MANILA, Philippines — The opponent names will become more recognizable for USA Basketball now. Nikola Vucevic awaits on Friday, Jonas Valanciunas on Sunday, and if the Americans keep progressing through this FIBA World Cup the challenges will only get tougher.

To that, they say this: Good.

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Second-round play at the World Cup starts Friday, with a 32-team field to start the tournament now down to 16 contenders for the Naismith Trophy. The U.S. is one of eight teams with 3-0 records, and those are the teams that have the easiest path to the quarterfinals.

“There’s an immediate respect level from guys going against them in the NBA,” U.S. coach Steve Kerr said. “The familiarity really helps as well. The hard part is when you go into a game and there’s a great player who these guys don’t know, and he’s got a last name with lots of letters, and you have to refer to him as No. 5 or whatever and our guys aren’t ready for how good this player is. That’s a huge challenge in this tournament.”

Not anymore. Nobody will need to Google most of the best players on the teams that made Round 2. Luka Doncic is headed there, along with Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Karl-Anthony Towns, Dennis Schroder, Patty Mills, Bogdan Bogdanovic, Vucevic and Valanciunas — among others.

In Round 2, the U.S. plays Montenegro on Friday and Lithuania on Sunday.

“For us as a country, to get to play against the U.S. will be a huge thing,” said Vucevic, Montenegro’s best player. “We have to go out there and show our best … and enjoy that game.”

Joining the U.S. in Round 2 with 3-0 records out of group play are Slovenia, defending World Cup champion Spain, Canada, Germany, Serbia, the Dominican Republic and Lithuania. For those eight teams, the task is this simple: Win two games this weekend, and the quarterfinals are certain. Each could also lose one of their next two games and still advance.

Also in the second-round field are eight teams that advanced with 2-1 records: Montenegro, Greece, Italy, Puerto Rico, Australia, Georgia, Brazil and Latvia.

The Americans are the only team in the tournament that have won every game so far by at least 27 points. Canada’s closest win margin so far is 26; Lithuania’s is 20.

“Nothing changes,” U.S. captain Jalen Brunson said. “The approach has to be the same. It’s almost the knockout stage, and we approach the game like it’s our last game every game. We’ve got to keep that same mentality. There’s just a lot more at stake now.”