FIBA: USA takes on China in crucial 3x3 matchup before play-in begins

FIBA: USA takes on China in crucial 3×3 matchup before play-in begins

August 3, 2024

in WNBA

Reading Time: 3 mins read

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The penultimate day of women’s 3×3 basketball at the 2024 Paris Olympics will tip-off this Saturday, Aug. 3, beginning with the final round of pool play games and culminating with the first two games (or “play-in” games) of the 3×3 tournament.

Since the tournament schedule won’t technically be set until after Saturday’s pool games have been decided, it’s hard to predict what will happen when Olympic medals are on the line. Here are the pool play standings thus far:

The only thing set in stone is that France, with just one win and one game remaining, will not make the tournament and thus be eliminated from the competition. Germany, meanwhile, is in the driver’s seat to advance directly to the semifinals that begin on Monday, Aug. 5, but they’ll still need to finish pool play strong on Saturday to clinch the top-two finish needed for a play-in bye.

The rest of the pool remains completely up in the air. China and Azerbaijan will be in must-win situations, while the United States will also try to sneak into the tournament after beginning pool play at 0-3. With the way the final round of pool games are set up, there’s even a possibility that the United States, Canada, Azerbaijan and China all finish pool play with a 3-4 record, which would create an unenviable four-way tiebreaker scenario in which head-to-head records would decide who moves on and who is eliminated, according to the FIBA 3×3 rulebook.

The United States can’t worry about that now. They’ve dug themselves out of an early hole in pool play, evening their record at 3-3 after a last-second Rhyne Howard basket lifted them over Canada. While the United States hasn’t quite lived up to the lofty expectations it earned with gold medals in the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and the 2023 FIBA 3×3 World Cup, they’ve turned what could have been a disaster in Paris into a situation that’s still salvageable. Finishing pool play strong against China would put the United States in the tournament phase, at which point anything could happen—for better or for worse.