3×3 basketball: Australian women start strong at World Cup

The Australian women’s 3×3 basketball team is flying the flag with a clean sheet to start the FIBA 3×3 World Cup currently being held in Vienna, Austria.

The tournament runs May 30 to June 4 and our women’s squad started their campaign perfectly securing two from two wins beating Japan (22-11) and Poland (21-14) last Wednesday.

A race to 21 points, 3×3 basketball — widely regarded as the world’s biggest urban team sport — features three players per side on a half-court with a single hoop.

The Australian women took bronze at the Birmingham Commonwealth Games in the sport’s first appearance at the event, and they return the same team for the World Cup — Anneli Maley, Lauren Mansfield, Marena Whittle, and Alex Wilson.

The pool the Australians find themselves in delivers strong possibilities to play deep into the tournament, facing off with Germany, Japan, Egypt, and Poland.

Atop the international rankings are France (1) and Germany (2), with the French the reigning champions after winning the final in last year’s edition 16-13 over Canada.

The Aussie women will tip off against Egypt on Saturday with online bookmakers favouring the green and gold ($1.10) and having Egypt as rank underdogs ($7.50).

The Australian men’s team is made up of four players who bring a combined experience of over 900 NBL games in Daniel Johnson, Mitch McCarron, Andrew Steel, and Lucas Walker.

Currently ranked 17th in the world, they have a lot to prove after going down in both of their games so far.

Serbia sit atop the standings and not only are the reigning champions after beating Lithuania 21-16 in the final of the 2022 edition, they also have won the most World Cup titles (5).

Unlike the women’s team, the men have drawn a pool that is far more competitive with three of the other four teams being top 10 in the world rankings – United States (2), Austria (9), Latvia (7), and Slovenia (15).

After narrow defeats to the Americans (21-18) and Austria (17-15), the Aussie men now face off against Slovenia ($17) on Saturday morning as $1.01 favourites with the top basketball betting sites.

With the Olympics to be held next year and the sport to make its second appearance at the Games, our squads will be hoping to show they can compete and qualify for an appearance at Paris 2024 after missing qualification in 2021.

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