First Official FIBA 3x3 World Championships

[Euroleague]

The first official FIBA 3x3 World Championship tournaments are starting soon. The senior championships for men and women takes place in Athens, Greece, and the junior men's and women's championships take place in Madrid, Spain.

Here is some info from FIBA:


http://www.fiba.com/pages/eng/fc/3x3...-events-wc.asp



FIBA 3x3 WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS
(men & women & U18)

The FIBA 3x3 World Championship is the top level 3x3 basketball National Team event. Unlike the ‘open’ network of tournaments, players do not create teams themselves, but are selected by their National Federations to represent their countries. There are in fact four FIBA 3x3 World Championship competitions: the FIBA 3x3 World Championship for men, for women, for U18 men and U18 women. Similarly to FIBA’s five on five tournaments, countries qualify via their respective Continental Zones, according to a pre-defined quota for each continent.

The FIBA 3x3 World Championship is the highest National Team 3x3 competition and is played at senior men, senior women, U18 men and U18 women level.


3x3 World Championship - Senior Men

Frequency - every 2 years

Number of teams - 24 teams

2012 edition - Athens, Greece, 23-26 August



3x3 World Championship - Senior Women

Frequency - every 2 years

Number of teams - 24 teams

2012 edition - Athens, Greece, 23-26 August


3x3 World Championship - U18 Men

Frequency - every year

Number of teams - 32 teams

2012 edition - Madrid, Spain, 28-30 September



3x3 World Championship - U18 Women

Frequency - every year

Number of teams - 24 teams

2012 edition - Madrid, Spain, 28-30 September


The 24 team formats (senior men, senior women and U18 women), sees teams are divided into four groups of six teams and play in a round-robin first round against their five respective group opponents. The top four teams from each group progress to the Eighth-Finals where the tournament continues in a standard knock-out format.

The 32 team formats (U18 men), sees teams are divided into four groups of eight teams and play in a round-robin first round against their seven respective group opponents. The top two teams from each group progress to the Quarter-Finals where the tournament continues in a standard knock-out format.

The 3x3 World Championships events also include individual skills challenges for participating players, activities and entertainment.

The 3x3 World Championships will consist of 24 Men’s and 24 Women’s teams.

The participating teams will be:
MEN - Argentina, Brazil, Czech Republic, Dominican Republic, Egypt, England, Estonia, France, Greece, Guam, Ivory Coast, Latvia, Lebanon, Nepal, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Slovenia, Spain, Sri Lanka, Turkey, Ukraine, USA and Venezuela.
WOMEN - Angola, Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Chinese Taipei, Czech Republic, England, Estonia, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Jordan, Mexico, Nepal, Netherlands, Russia, Slovak Republic, Slovenia, Spain, Sri Lanka, Turkey, Ukraine and USA.

Meanwhile, there will be 32 Boys’ and 24 Girls’ teams playing in the U18 tournament.

The participating teams will be:
BOYS - Angola, Australia, Belize, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, China, Dominican Republic, Estonia, France, Germany, Hungary, Iran, Italy, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Latvia, Lithuania, New Zealand, Poland, Serbia, Seychelles, Singapore, Slovak Republic, Slovenia, Spain, Switzerland, Syria, Tunisia, Turkey, USA and Venezuela.
GIRLS - Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Chinese Taipei, Czech Republic, England, Estonia, France, Guam, Hong Kong, Italy, Ivory Coast, Jordan, Lithuania, Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Spain, Sri Lanka, Switzerland, Tunisia, Turkey and USA.


Official Website:

http://greece2012.fiba.com/pages/eng...c/p/index.html

[East_Stone_Ya]

but there is no Greece team?

[LosBulls]

Dominican Republic darkhorse...

Edgar Sosa,Al Horford,Karl Towns

[Noof]

This whole thing is pretty strange. Does anybody even play organized 3 on 3?

[coin24]

3 on 3?? Fu*k that...

[Nash]

3 on 3? Man that sounds interesting, gotta watch it.

[Nero Tulip]

I still have a hard time believing this is real. This is the stupidest idea ever. 5x5 already looks more and more like 3x3 with new rules everywhere favouring static shitty iso attacks to a ridiculous point.

How the hell are you supposed to defend in a 3x3 involving good players...

[niko]

Streetball tournaments are boring. It sounds good, but it doesn't live up to it. You are going to have tournaments with wash out NBA players, etc. I don't see the need for this at all. It's a totally made up event.

[Euroleague]

Greece announced their team for the senior men's 3x3 tournament:

Starters:

G Nikos Pappas 6-5
F Charis Giannopoulos 6-7
C Georgios Bogris 6-11

Substitute:

G Nondas Papantoniou 6-3


These players are all members of Greece's Under-23 national team.

[ZenMaster]

Got to say I'm very suprised about the negativity towards this from a lot of US fans.

More basketball worldwide is good, in any form.

[Euroleague]

Got to say I'm very suprised about the negativity towards this from a lot of US fans.

More basketball worldwide is good, in any form.

You have to grasp that most "US fans" only watch and only consider anything to be "legit" if ESPN tells them it is.

If it's not something ESPN talks about, then it's "worthless crap".

That's the typical mindset of the average "US fan".

[niko]

Got to say I'm very suprised about the negativity towards this from a lot of US fans.

More basketball worldwide is good, in any form.

It's not negative, it's just not interesting. Negative is THIS SUCKS! THEY SHOULDN'T DO IT! IT RUINS THE GAME!

This is just "ehh". Basketball is 5 on 5. You play 3 on 3 in the park not because it's more fun, but because most of the time you don't have 10 players, can't get an organized game together, and don't have a full court. 5 on 5 is the real game, 3 on 3 is what you play because you can.

Do you love the NFL like i do? Or Soccer? Do you have a strong desire to see 5 on 5 or 7 on 7 matches? Because we play that in the park too? ANd it would be equally "blah" to see.

I don't need ESPN to tell me that a 3 on 3 tourney with less players because the better ones are on the National teams is going to be at best so-so.

[Nero Tulip]

You have to grasp that most "US fans" only watch and only consider anything to be "legit" if ESPN tells them it is.

If it's not something ESPN talks about, then it's "worthless crap".

That's the typical mindset of the average "US fan".

Maybe you should understand that "true basketball fans" of a certain level know that it is a shit idea.

[Nero Tulip]

It's not negative, it's just not interesting. Negative is THIS SUCKS! THEY SHOULDN'T DO IT! IT RUINS THE GAME!

This is just "ehh". Basketball is 5 on 5. You play 3 on 3 in the park not because it's more fun, but because most of the time you don't have 10 players, can't get an organized game together, and don't have a full court. 5 on 5 is the real game, 3 on 3 is what you play because you can.

Do you love the NFL like i do? Or Soccer? Do you have a strong desire to see 5 on 5 or 7 on 7 matches? Because we play that in the park too? ANd it would be equally "blah" to see.

I don't need ESPN to tell me that a 3 on 3 tourney with less players because the better ones are on the National teams is going to be at best so-so.

This. There are many things that are obviously wrong with the concept, doesn't FIBA have better things to do than to spend resources on this crap.

[ZenMaster]

It's not negative, it's just not interesting. Negative is THIS SUCKS! THEY SHOULDN'T DO IT! IT RUINS THE GAME!

This is just "ehh". Basketball is 5 on 5. You play 3 on 3 in the park not because it's more fun, but because most of the time you don't have 10 players, can't get an organized game together, and don't have a full court. 5 on 5 is the real game, 3 on 3 is what you play because you can.

Do you love the NFL like i do? Or Soccer? Do you have a strong desire to see 5 on 5 or 7 on 7 matches? Because we play that in the park too? ANd it would be equally "blah" to see.

I don't need ESPN to tell me that a 3 on 3 tourney with less players because the better ones are on the National teams is going to be at best so-so.

Out point of views differ, to me it's not so much would I watch it on TV or whatever but about getting more people to play basketball. I come from a country where basketball isn't very popular and a couple years ago they started organizing street ball 3on3 events with qualifiers and finals, the main event has grown larger every year and is now played at what I think they call a "street mekka" and it's both for kids divided in age groups and adults, this tournament is now a qualifier for the FIBA world tour. Here's a picture of them playing in street mekka.

They'll do qualifiers on street courts in ghetto areas, leading up to this they also do a very cheap practice about once a week in the summer leading up to the actual playing events, the idea is that the kids are supposed to join their local basketball club if they like the sport or at the least keep playing for themselves with each other. For kids who are already players it's a great chance to get some extra play in a organized setting, court times for basketball players can be hard to come by especially in the summer, plus it's a good way to evolve as a individual player not always playing 5on5.

You say you play 3on3 because there isn't enough for 5on5, well here there usually aren't players on street courts for 3on3 except for a very few places in the summer unless players who know each other organize it within themselves.
It's also a good way to keep players in basketball without it being too serious, here we have a lot of problems that players quit around the age 17-18 because they start in high school and drink like crazy.

It's just a great way for kids to get a chance to play some ball and get hooked on the game, watching 3on3 at the Olympics would add to that for them.

For casual fans I think the game will be exciting as well, fewer players = more open court = more dunks and highlights.

To you it's a "would I watch it decision" but for a lot of people around the world it will help getting basketball more popular, getting kids good experiences with basketball which will help them clear out of trouble and I most definitely can get behind FIBA helping with this process.