3×3 Basketball World Cup 2017

Fast on the heels of the announcement that 3×3 basketball will be added to the schedule for Tokyo 2020, is the start of the 3×3 World Cup in France. Less than an one hour’s flying time from London the town of Nantes in the western part of the country is staging a basketball spectacular.

The 3×3 World Cup has a number of differences to the 5v5 version. The first one being it is being staged essentially outdoors under a covered arena.

Looking at the schedule of games throws-up another innovation – this is a World Cup for both genders. Men’s and Women’ games alternate throughout the day. The top 40 top ranked teams – 20 men’s and 20 women’s battling it out for the World Cup. And it is a truly global tournament with teams from every continent.

Teams are divided into four pools of five teams. Each team plays the other four from their group. The top two teams from each pool qualify for the quarter-finals and play knock-out games all the way to the final. With the exception of the bronze medal game there are no classification games played to decide the final standings. Anybody acquainted with Olympic 5v5 basketball can testify to how complicated that can get.

The usual basketball big guns such as USA, Spain and Russia are represented. But take a closer look at the team lists and you will see countries such as Bahrain, Sri Lanka and Andorra. These are not countries you would normally associate with being basketball powerhouses. And this highlights yet another great innovation of 3×3 – ranking teams and federations based on a points system. Essentially the more active players a country has competing in eligible tournaments, the higher that country’s federation will appear in the ranking. And this is the main criteria used to select countries for the World Cup. There are no qualifying matches between national teams.

The matches will come thick and fast on the first of a five day event. Twenty games are scheduled to be played. Games are 10 minutes in duration, with no half-time or quarters. The pace is kept up due a 12 second shot-clock. What is clear from observing a few of these matches is that 3×3 requires a combination of skills. Being tall does help but a player needs a lot more than mere height. All 3 players must have passing, dribbling, shooting, guarding and rebounding skills.

There are no team benches as teams are only allowed one substitute. They just sit on a cube shaped seat right next to each other. There is no going to the table to request a sub, they just exchange with a player on court when the team decides. And there no coaches present or indeed allowed. One official, from a team that shall remain nameless, was chased away by FIBA reps for trying to coach.

A player can’t foul out of a game as no personal foul count is kept just team ones. Once a team reaches seven team fouls the penalty is 2 free throws to the opposition team. If a team reaches 10 team fouls then the penalty is 2 free throws and possession.

A major difference to 5v5, apart from the game being played on the half-court, is the way the ball is kept moving after a score. There is no taking it out of play and inbounding it. Once the offence scores, the defence gets the ball and has to get it outside the arc before they can attack. As long as the ball is outside the “no-charge semi-circle” the ball can be stolen. This leads to incident packed sequences where the ball is stolen and stolen back before a real offence is started.

Another innovation is how a game ends. As usual whoever is ahead once time runs out is the winner. But if a team reaches 21-points before the clock has expired then they win the game there and then. If there is a requirement for overtime, then its sudden death – the first team to score two points wins.