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RIO DE JANEIRO — Americans love a winner. They also enjoy a good comeback story.

With the Rio Olympics winding down to its final days and plenty of sports having wrapped up their competitions, you aren’t going to find a better tale of determination and resilience than the rebound of the United States men’s volleyball team.

The U.S. was winless and rudderless after its first two games in pool play, losses to Canada and Italy in which the Americans dropped six of seven sets. The defeats sparked team meetings (including a players-only talk) to not just clear the air but also reestablish what they intended to accomplish in Rio.

Since then, the U.S. has been a completely different team, looking more like the one that entered the Rio Games ranked fifth in the world. The stunning turnaround continued Wednesday when the Americans won their fourth straight match, a three-set sweep of world No. 2 Poland (25-23, 25-22, 25-20), before a loud USA contingent at the Maracanazinho.

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A Friday semifinal awaits the U.S., an outcome that sounded unlikely with the way the Americans’ tournament began.

“We’ve believed the whole time,” said wing spiker Taylor Sander. “Even against Italy, I mean [against] Canada we really played bad, but against Italy we played more of the style we wanted to. They just made some big plays. We’ve come back from that and it’s been a cool journey. But I mean it’s been tough. … It was a gut check for sure.

“It was,” he said pausing, “pretty gnarly.”

Middle blocker Max Holt acknowledged that the U.S. suffered some Olympic jitters in the 3-0 opening loss to Canada. After losing 3-1 to Italy, he said the meetings allowed the players to remind each other that “everybody had each other’s back.”

The solution, however, was always going to come from within. The answer was always going to come down to the effort the Americans were putting forth.

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“It’s the Olympics – we weren’t going to give up,” Holt said. “It happens every four years. We didn’t want to get knocked out. We wanted to be here and keep fighting.”

The U.S. had to dig deep again against Poland. After taking the first set, the Americans fell into an 18-13 hole but rallied to take the second set 25-22. The victory was USA’s fourth straight after wins over top-ranked Brazil, France and Mexico.

“I don’t know if any other team has been through what we’ve been through in such a short amount of time,” Holt said.

Maybe only Spain’s men’s basketball team can compare horror stories. But the script that’s been written about the U.S. men’s volleyball team now is being punched up to be a feel-good tale of overcoming adversity. And Americans just love that.