FIBA to propose 3x3 basketball as an Olympic event

[Hepcat]

So I understand that Serbia, Russia, China and Japan have already qualified for the Men's event while Russia, China, Mongolia and Romania have already qualified for the Women's event. Not that I can understand why those particular teams have qualified since the Olympics are in Japan and the U.S.A. won the most recent FIBA World Cup for Men in 2019.

The remaining teams will be determined from the following groups at a pre-Olympic Qualifying Tournament which will take place in Graz, Austria from May 26 to May 30:

[JGX]

So I understand that Serbia, Russia, China and Japan have already qualified for the Men's event while Russia, China, Mongolia and Romania have already qualified for the Women's event. Not that I can understand why those particular teams have qualified since the Olympics are in Japan and the U.S.A. won the most recent FIBA World Cup for Men in 2019.

They are trying to limit the number of countries that qualify in both the men's and women's tournaments and the FIBA 3x3 rankings do not have much connection to results in national team competition. At one point Andorra was among the top-ranked countries.

See this about the Canadian women, who would obviously be one of the top teams:

https://www.sportsnet.ca/basketball/nba/canadas-womens-3x3-team-devastated-left-olympic-qualifiers/

[Hepcat]

They are trying to limit the number of countries that qualify in both the men's and women's tournaments and the FIBA 3x3 rankings do not have much connection to results in national team competition. At one point Andorra was among the top-ranked countries.

Do you know how many teams in all will be competing in the Mens' 3x3 Event at the Olympics?

See this about the Canadian women, who would obviously be one of the top teams:

https://www.sportsnet.ca/basketball/...ic-qualifiers/

Bloody FIBA! You know this is all about expanding awareness of the game to places that don't give a damn for it now.

[Hepcat]

So I guess only three Men's teams and three Women's teams will make it to the Olympics from the Qualifying Tournament in Austria. One more crap team will then be able to qualify to provide geographical diversity. Therefore the Olympic 3x3 Event will include only eight teams for each sex.

[Hepcat]

Since the games last no longer than ten minutes, the teams will be playing two games per day at the Olympics. Why therefore the number of teams participating in the Olympics will be limited to eight is incomprehensible.

[Hepcat]

(Three) teams will be determined from the following groups at a pre-Olympic Qualifying Tournament which will take place in Graz, Austria from May 26 to May 30:

In the Men's Pool B Kazakhstan will be replacing New Zealand which has elected to withdraw from the tournament due to financial and other problems.

[Hepcat]

In Rio 2016? Or, do you mean Tokyo 2020?

The discussion in this thread has been all about the Olympics that will be held in Tokyo in the summer of 2021.

not for Rio 2016, but this is officially happening in Tokyo 2020.

[Hepcat]

An interesting 3x3 tournament, the Lipik Challenger, will take place in Lipik, Croatia tomorrow and Saturday:

Lipik Challenger 2021 - Teams

I'm particularly interested in seeing how the Edmonton team of Jordan Jensen-Whyte, Alex Johnson, Kyle Landry and Steve Sir will play and therefore whether Team Canada is a real contender to secure an Olympic berth in Graz, Austria next week.

[Hepcat]

So Basketball Canada has announced that the Edmonton team of Jordan Jensen-Whyte, Alex Johnson, Kyle Landry and Steve Sir will represent Canada at next week's Olympic Qualifying Tournament in Graz and will also represent Canada at the Olympics if successful in qualifying.

[Hepcat]

Well Edmonton(Team Canada) wasn't particularly impressive at the Lipik Challenger. The same Antwerp team of Bryan De Valck, Nick Celis, Thierry Marien and Thibaut Vervoort which finished eighth in the Pro Category of Stop 2 of the Lithuanian Championships in Garliava two weeks ago knocked off Edmonton 18-15 in the quarterfinals.

Edmonton did beat Bielefeld of Germany 21-18 in first round action but Bielefeld finished way back in tenth out of twelve teams at the ULE Tournament in St. Petersburg over the first three weekends of April.

Antwerp surprised me by going on to win the tournament championship. Antwerp prevailed 20-18 in the final over the San Juan team which also did a lot better than I expected:

Lipik Challenger

[JGX]

At the "Big 12" tournament in France, Serbia beat the US 21-9 in the men's final, while the US women held off a late rally from France B for a 20-19 championship win.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8SumlcXXhoU

[Hepcat]

Interesting! The other teams in the Men's competition were the Dominican Republic, France, Hungary, Israel, Qatar, Russia and Ukraine.

[Hepcat]

The U.S. team at the Graz Qualifying Tournament will consist of Robbie Hummel (Princeton), Kareem Maddox (Princeton), "Disco Domo" Jones (NY Harlem) and Joey King (NY Harlem). Joey King it seems is a last minute replacement for Canyon Barry, the son of NBA legend Rick Barry.

The team had a training camp in Orlando earlier this year and they've been training in another one in Los Angeles since May 1st. The United States is therefore taking the Olympic 3x3 event very seriously.

[Hepcat]

I have a number of gripes with respect to how the whole Olympic 3x3 Tournament has been set up.

First of all, the stated objective of FIBA is to grow the game internationally by expanding into more countries. Why then can only eight teams per sex qualify for the Olympics? In some tournaments teams play as many as five of these ten minute games per day. FIBA could easily have arranged for an Olympic tournament with four groups of four teams per sex.

Secondly, I can understand Japan the host country automatically qualifying. And on the Men's side Serbia and Russia are also pre-qualified as the country's with the two highest ranking Federations in late 2019 (very luckily in Russia's case since Russia finished a miserable sixteenth at the 2019 World Cup and ninth at the 2019 Europe Cup). But China is also pre-qualified! Why? China is miserable at 3x3! What did China do, pay FIBA off? Why is FIBA kissing China's ass again?

The United States finished first at the 2019 World Cup. You would think that would have pre-qualified the United States. But no, it's China that's somehow pre-qualified.

Thirdly, prior to the Qualifying Tournament I thought that Latvia, the United States, Lithuania and the Netherlands had the four best Men's teams ( I may of course be wrong). And after the preliminary round robin I would have expected playoff pairings of Group A versus Group B and Group C versus Group D. Failing that for a different symmetry Group A versus Group D and Group B versus Group C. But no. Somehow FIBA decided to pair Group A versus Group C and Group B versus Group D in the first round of the playoffs. WTF?! This means that the four best teams are likely to be matched against each other in the QFs and two will be eliminated.

Finally if they fail in this tournament, I see that the Men's teams of Latvia, the Netherlands and Slovenia will get another chance to grab the eighth and final qualifying slot in a Universality Qualifying Tournament for countries that weren't in the Olympic basketball tournaments for either sex in 2012 and 2016. But no second chance for the United States, Lithuania or Canada. Ugggghhhh!!!

[JGX]

I have a number of gripes with respect to how the whole Olympic 3x3 Tournament has been set up.

Me too!

First of all, the stated objective of FIBA is to grow the game internationally by expanding into more countries. Why then can only eight teams per sex qualify for the Olympics? In some tournaments teams play as many as five of these ten minute games per day. FIBA could easily have arranged for an Olympic tournament with four groups of four teams per sex.

It's up to the IOC how many teams/athletes can compete at the Olympics, FIBA doesn't really have control here. More athletes means more of a burden on the organizers in terms of housing and facilities.

That said, FIBA has been reducing the size of their own 3x3 events since their inception, and that's really a shame, since a big advantage of the format IMO is that with smaller teams, outdoor half-courts, and shorter games, you can have more participating teams. Instead the teams play four ten-minute games spread over four days! I'm sure that FIBA has their reasons for cutting down the number of teams and limiting their events to one court (they used to have four courts going simultaneously) but it is disappointing.

Secondly, I can understand Japan the host country automatically qualifying. And on the Men's side Serbia and Russia are also pre-qualified as the country's with the two highest ranking Federations in late 2019 (very luckily in Russia's case since Russia finished a miserable sixteenth at the 2019 World Cup and ninth at the 2019 Europe Cup).

The rankings are total crap and it discredits all the international tournaments. Just a few years ago Andorra was one of the top-ranked countries, even though they were not actually any good.

I am enjoying Mongolia's success though.

The United States finished first at the 2019 World Cup. You would think that would have pre-qualified the United States. But no, it's China that's somehow pre-qualified.

Thirdly, prior to the Qualifying Tournament I thought that Latvia, the United States, Lithuania and the Netherlands had the four best Men's teams ( I may of course be wrong). And after the preliminary round robin I would have expected playoff pairings of Group A versus Group B and Group C versus Group D. Failing that for a different symmetry Group A versus Group D and Group B versus Group C. But no. Somehow FIBA decided to pair Group A versus Group C and Group B versus Group D in the first round of the playoffs. WTF?! This means that the four best teams are likely to be matched against each other in the QFs and two will be eliminated.

Finally if they fail in this tournament, I see that the Men's teams of Latvia, the Netherlands and Slovenia will get another chance to grab the eighth and final qualifying slot in a Universality Qualifying Tournament for countries that weren't in the Olympic basketball tournaments for either sex in 2012 and 2016. But no second chance for the United States,

Everything about the qualifying setup is nonsensical. The Canadian women raised their own money to travel the world in 2019 playing in the FIBA 3x3 women's series that offered no prize money, won four of seven tournaments...and don't even get to play in the Olympic qualifiers. Meanwhile, Uruguay, who went winless at the 2019 Pan Am Games 3x3, has a spot.